As a result of this censorship, a curious practice arose - it may have predated the censorship, but thereafter acquired encouragement as a form of resistance - that where the word "emptiness" occurred - or should have occurred - the individual was supposed to spit (on the floor), on the pretext that "emptiness" is very similar to the Hebrew word for "spittle". This practice was mentioned by the early 15th century. When, for example, the accusations about this verse were revived in Prussia in 1703, the government (in Berlin) enacted that the controversial verse should be omitted altogether "and" that spitting or recoiling was forbidden "and" that the prayer would be recited aloud "in unison" by the whole congregation (to make sure nobody was surreptitiously reciting the verse) "and" that government inspectors would be posted in synagogues to ensure compliance. Apparently no one was ever prosecuted for violating this edict. In some other places, the practice of spitting persisted (or at least was remembered), and there arose a Yiddish expression for someone arriving very late for services (perhaps just to recite the Mourners' Kaddish, which follows "Aleinu"), "He arrives at the spitting" ( ).