 Thus, if on the old view the “meaning” of an expression (the descriptions speakers associated with it) fixed the reference of the expression, on the new theory, the referent fixes the meaning. “Water” picks out whatever stuff we happened to baptize with the name “water” at the beginning of the “term-using practice.” As it happens, that stuff has a distinctive micro-constitution: it is H20. Thus, “water” refers to stuff that is H20, and that is what the term means: the stuff that is H20.