 But why the claim just mentioned isn’t a necessary truth is instructive. It’s not because it’s possible that A, the first and only user of ‘S’, mistakenly thought there was a linguistic convention according to which ‘S’ means n. Operating on that assumption, he uttered ‘S’, intending it to mean n. However, because of contextual clues respecting the surroundings in which ‘S’ was used, because of the topic under discussion when it was used, and because of ignorance and misunderstanding (of the language and of what A was driving at) on the part of his listeners, all his listeners took it that there was already a linguistic convention according to which ‘S’ means m. That’s how they understood ‘S’, and they thus believed and acted accordingly. A, oblivious to the misunderstanding on their part, soon forgets about ‘S’ and the meaning he attached to it. In these circumstances, ‘S’ means m because that’s what the language-using community takes it to mean: in effect, their beliefs and behavior establish a convention according to which ‘S’ means m. The meaning rests on what might be called “community uptake”, not individual uptake of speech act performance, as Beardsley has it, and not the speaker’s intention, as intentionalists have it.