The millere seyde agayn, "If ther be eny,
Swich as it is, yet shal ye have youre part.
Myn hous is streit, but ye han lerned art;
Ye konne by argumentes make a place
A myle brood of twenty foot of space.
Lat se now if this place may suffise,
Or make it rowm with speche, as is youre gise."
– Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales, The Reeve’s Tale. When John and Alan have to ask Symkyn to give them lodgings for the night, the students’ smug adversary can’t resist the opportunity to rub more salt in their wounds. He teases them by saying his house is small but they can use their logical arguments to increase twenty feet of space into an area a mile broad. He is mocking them for the sophistry of their scholarly training.