The article re-examines the problem of ‘short’ o-stems datives in Homeric Greek. The use of these forms appears to be due to a variety of needs: stylistic, expressive, metrical, syntactic and formulaic. A further linguistic argument is provided for interpreting the ending -o in de-so-mo (KN Ra [1] 1548) as an instrumental plural (< PIE *-is, Gr. -οις).