 There is a worry about this view that can be put in the following way: if there is such a thing as Sherlock Holmes, then it has arms and legs; but if Sherlock Holmes is an abstract object, as this view supposes, then it does not have arms and legs (because abstract objects are non-physical); therefore, it cannot be the case that Sherlock Holmes exists and is an abstract object, for this leads to contradiction. Various solutions to this problem have been proposed. For instance, Zalta argues that in addition to exemplifying certain properties, abstract objects also encode properties. The fictional character Sherlock Holmes encodes the properties of being a detective, being male, being English, having arms and legs, and so on. But it does not exemplify any of these properties. It exemplifies the properties of being abstract, being a fictional character, having been thought of first by Arthur Conan Doyle, and so on. Zalta maintains that in English, the copula ‘is’ — as in ‘a is F’ — is ambiguous; it can be read as ascribing either property exemplification or property encoding. When we say ‘Sherlock Holmes is a detective’, we are saying that Holmes encodes the property of being a detective; and when we say ‘Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character’, we are saying that Holmes exemplifies the property of being a fictional character. (It should be noted that Zalta employs the device of encoding with respect to all abstract objects — mathematical objects, logical objects, and so on — not just fictional objects. Also, Zalta points out that his theory of encoding is based on a similar theory developed by Ernst Mally (1912).)