  Events are things that happen. In some cases, however, the same sort of prima facie evidence that suggests a realist attitude towards such things might suggest a similar attitude towards things that do not actually happen, including “negative actions” of various sorts (Danto 1966; Ryle 1973). We speak of John’s walk with the same easiness with which we speak of the talk he did not deliver, the nap he did not take, the party he failed to organize; we seem to quantify over such things, and we normally engage in causal talk that seems to refer explicitly to negative causes, as when we reason that John’s failure to turn off the gas caused an explosion, or that his omitting the cutlery from the wedding list made Mary angry. Some authors take such evidence at face value, drawing a distinction at the ontological level: a good inventory of the world ought to include “negative” events and actions along with ordinary, “positive” ones (Lee 1978; Vermazen 1985; De Swart 1996; Przepiórkowski 1999; Higginbotham 2000; Mossel 2009; Silver 2018; Bernard &amp; Champollion 2018). Others dissent: we often speak as though there were such things, but deep down we want our words to be interpreted in such a way as to avoid ontological commitment. Thus, either we are just engaging in mere counterfactual speculations, or else the putative negative events are just ordinary, positive events under a negative description: ‘John’s omitting the cutlery from the wedding list’, for example, would refer to his drawing up a wedding list that contains no cutlery, ‘Mary’s not moving’ would describe Mary’s working hard to master urges to move, etc. (Mele 2005; Varzi 2008). The latter view can also be construed in metaphysical (as opposed to semantic) terms, at least in some cases: for x to omit to φ (refrain from φ-ing, etc.) at t would be for x to ensure, through their actual behavior, that they do not φ at t (Payton 2018). 