Bava Batra 105A

בטל ״מדה בחבל״ ״הן חסר הן יתר״; דברי בן ננס.

the words: Measured precisely with a rope, nullify the words: More or less, since the principle is that in all cases, one should attend to the final expression; this is the statement of ben Nanas.

גמ׳ אמר רבי אבא בר ממל אמר רב: חולקין עליו חביריו על בן ננס. מאי קא משמע לן? תנינא: מעשה בציפורי, באחד ששכר מרחץ מחבירו בשנים עשר זהובים לשנה ⁠– דינר זהב לחדש;

Talmud: R' Abba bar Memel says that Rav says: Ben Nanas’s colleagues disagree with him with regard to his ruling that one should attend to the final expression. The Talmud asks: What new halakha is Rav teaching us? Don’t we already learn that they disagree from a Mishnah (Bava Metzia 102a): There was once an incident in Tzippori involving one who rented a bathhouse from another, and it was stated that the rental fee would be 12 gold dinars [zehuvim] a year, one gold dinar per month, and the year was later intercalated, an extra month being added.

ובא מעשה לפני רבן שמעון בן גמליאל ולפני רבי יוסי, ואמרו: יחלוקו את חדש העיבור!

The incident came before Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel and before R' Yosei for a decision as to whether the intercalated month is included in the words: 12 gold dinars a year, or whether an additional payment must be made for that month, as the agreement stipulated: One gold dinar per month. And they said: The landlord and the tenant should divide the intercalated month between them, and so the tenant should pay only half a gold dinar for it. This indicates that these rabbis ruled that the meaning of an agreement containing two contradictory expressions is in doubt, and therefore the parties divide the disputed amount between them. From here it follows that they disagree with the opinion of ben Nanas, who says that in such a case one should attend to the final expression.