Socrates pretends to help Meno give him an answer to the question "What is virtue?", which would explain every virtue, by providing a sample answer to the question "What is shape?", applicable to all shapes. Socrates encourages Meno to criticize it, spurring him on by noting that it's now Meno's turn to answer the question "What is virtue?", which Meno apparently will avoid by any means. Although the answer about shape is very bad, Meno utilizes a stock criticism which he has heard given in an eristic setting (as hinted to by Socrates in his response). Any answer by a victim can be laughed at by pointing out how silly it is to explain X by Y when neither X nor Y is understood by a (fictional) third person.