The comic indefinite comprises an extensive class of comedy. One species is restricted to statements which are neither explicit nor precise regarding a particular person, place, time or thing. A woman met a famous author at a literary tea. ``Oh, I'm so delighted to meet you,'' she gushed. ``It was only the other day that I saw something of yours, about something or other, in some magazine.''

This baffling lack of distinct details recalls the secretary whose employer was leaving the office and told her what to answer if anyone called in his absence. ``I may be back,'' he explained, ``and then again, I may not.'' The girl nodded understandingly. ``Yes, sir,'' she said, ``is that definite?''

An old-fashioned mother said to her modern daughter, ``You must have gotten in quite late last night, dear. Where were you?'' The daughter replied, ``Oh, I had dinner with -- well, you don't know him but he's awfully nice -- and we went to a couple of places -- I don't suppose you've heard of them -- and we finished up at a cute little night club -- I forget the name of it. Why, it's all right, isn't it, Mother?'' Her woolly minded parent agreed. ``Of course, dear,'' she said. ``It's only that I like to know where you go.''

No less ambiguous was the indefinity of a certain clergyman's sermon. ``Dearly beloved,'' he preached, ``unless you repent of your sins in a measure, and become converted to a degree, you will, I regret to say, be damned to a more or less extent.'' This clergyman should have referred to Shakespeare's dictum: ``So-so is a good, very good, very excellent maxim. And yet it is not. It is but so-so.''