Courtesy of Yes, Minister:
Concerned woman: Listen, I've heard that this factory will be making the chemical that poisoned Seveso.
Jim Hacker: Now that's not true. The chemical in Seveso was dioxin. This is metadioxin.
Woman: Well that must be virtually the same thing.
Hacker: No, it's just a similar name.
Woman: It's the same name, only with 'meta' stuck on the front.
Hacker: And that makes all the difference.
Woman: Why, what does 'meta' mean?
Hacker: (baffled) What does 'meta' mean, Humphrey?
Sir Humphrey: It's quite simple. It means 'with' or 'after', sometimes 'beyond'. It's from the Greek. In other words, with or after dioxin, sometimes beyond dioxin. It depends whether it's the accusative or the genitive. With the accusative it's beyond or after, with the genitive it's with. As in Latin, of course, as you no doubt obviously recall, where the ablative is used for words needing a sense of 'with' to preceed them.
Bernard: But of course there isn't an ablative in Greek, is there Sir Humphrey?
Sir Humphrey: Well done, Bernard, well done.
Hacker: You see?
Woman: Not really, no.