 To resolve the apparent paradox of legislative language, we can say that what speakers of the English language share, in virtue of their grasp of the meaning of a word like ‘vehicle’, is an ability to use the word in a way that depends on the context. The question of whether a chicken coop on wheels counts as a ‘vehicle’ would be a different question (and might have a different answer), if another statute or regulation imposed a tax on ‘vehicles’. The relevant considerations might be different again if a statute or regulation required ‘vehicles’ to keep to the left-hand side of the road. The Lord Chief Justice was right that a dictionary definition of ‘vehicle’ could not conclude the question of whether the chicken coop was a vehicle in Garner v Burr, because the purpose of a dictionary definition is to point the reader to features of the use of the word that can be more-or-less important in a variety of more-or-less analogical ways in various contexts. A definition of ‘vehicle’ as a mode of conveyance offers the reader one central strand in the use of that word, but does not tell the reader whether a more-or-less analogical extension of the word to a chicken coop on wheels is warranted or unwarranted by the meaning of the word. Another way of stating this resolution of the apparent paradox of legislative language is by distinguishing between the meaning of a word (which the magistrates and the appeal judges all knew) and the way in which a communicative act using the word ought to be understood (over which they disagreed). The judges and magistrates in Garner v Burr shared a knowledge of the meaning of the word ‘vehicle’; they could all share mastery of that word, while disagreeing over the effect of the legislature’s use of the word. The evident good sense of that proposition has led some philosophers to theories that state or imply that law is not made by the use of language; see section 3 below.