Willard van Orman Quine Knew the number of planets was nine But it’s not necessarily true That the planets are greater than two And that contradicts what we know That ‘two’s less than nine’ must be so – Of mathematical necessity So the number of planets can’t be With ‘nine’ substituted you see (At least not so obviously) In a manner which truth will sustain When the sentence involved does contain A term that is modal in kind – Whether box or a diamond we find. So Quine thought it then a mistake Since de re modal terms are opaque To think that there is such a thing As third-degree modalizing! But to Quine now we might well object That he didn’t have things quite correct Since the name and description’s synonymy Depends on the facts of astronomy!