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"Favete linguis!" is a Latin phrase, which means "facilitate [the ritual acts] with your tongues” ("tongues" as the organ of speech). In other words, "hold your tongue" or "facilitate the ritual acts by being silent".
The phrase is used by Cicero,[1] Ovid,[2] Horace, Pliny the Elder and Seneca.
Northrop Frye used the term in reference to the way that the philosophy of "new criticism" proscribes a limitation on the use of interdisciplinary criticism, suggesting that, for those who wish to dabble with a text by using tools from outside the literary tradition (i.e. using the critical techniques of other artistic disciplines on literature), they would do well to 'hold their tongues.'[citation needed]
'Favour me with your tongues'. During official ritual acts a herald ordered the others to be silent by saying this phrase. It was done in order to avert an interruption by a careless, maybe also an ominous, word.[citation needed]