 The author’s insinuation—that Mr X is a weak candidate—is arrived at only via a prior interpretation of the expressions as they are used in the utterance. This prior interpretation is the first meaning. The contrast implicit in “first” is with the insinuations or implicatures one subsequently goes on to read into the utterance. Davidson uses “first” meaning in an effort to avoid the terms “literal” or “conventional” meaning because the thought that there is a level of meaning that is somehow determined independently of the communicative act, by linguistic convention, is exactly what he plans to challenge. “First meaning” is to be understood more neutrally as the initial meaning the utterer intends you to ascribe to the uttered expressions in the context of a particular utterance.