 Although the basic idea is reasonable enough, Ockham recognized that there are problems. The length of a coiled rope, for example, can straightforwardly be compared to the length of an uncoiled rope, and the one can meaningfully be said to be longer or shorter than, or equal in length to, the other. For that matter, a single rope surely stays the same length, whether it is coiled or extended full-length. Ockham’s solution to these problems is to note that, on his ontology, straight lines and curved lines are not really different species of lines—because lines are not extra things in the first place. Talk about lines is simply a “manner of speaking” about substances and qualities.