 In M 1 and M 2, Sextus says that the skeptic goes along with ordinary ways of using language (M 1.172, 193, 206, 218, 229, 233; M 2.52–3, 58–9). This seems to be a key resource in construing skeptical ways of speaking: the skeptic exploits the ways in which ordinary speakers can diverge from grammatically correct speech, and still be understood. Apart from using their skeptical formulae, and apart from conducting philosophical investigations, which they can do in a dialectical mode, referring to theses, arguments, and inferences, the skeptic also has to talk in everyday contexts. It is here where we see best how skeptical utterances are tailored to reveal a state of mind in which nothing is accepted or rejected. Sextus takes great pains to construe his examples of skeptical utterances according to the following schema: “X appears F to me now.” This will generally be understood as an elliptical version of “X appears to be F to me now.” However, Sextus consistently avoids “to be” (Vogt 1998; for the view that “X appears F” avoids reference to external objects, see Everson 1991). The peculiar form of skeptical utterances suggests that Sextus sees a relevant difference between “X appears to be F to me now” and “X appears F to me now.” The former might imply reference to a state of affairs, and an epistemic usage of “to appear” that could be rendered as “It appears to me, that p,” or, “I take it that p.” This, however, would be assertoric: the skeptic would state that it appears to them that such-and-such is the case. But the skeptic’s elliptical utterances about what appears to them aim to be purely phenomenological. They aim to report a condition of the skeptic’s mind, without expressing a judgment of any kind (Burnyeat 1984 [1997]; Annas-Barnes 1985, 23–4; for an assessment of these strategies in terms of modern philosophy of language, cf. Pagin 2020). As part of the skeptics’ way of life, language can also be seen as an activity. That is, how the skeptics can speak can be considered a sub–question of how the skeptics can act. Skeptical utterances have been compared to Wittgensteinian confessions, arguably a kind of speech act that is consistent with the skeptics’ avoidance of belief (Corti 2009, Parts I and II). Moreover, the skeptics not only speak. They presumably also understand what others say. A persuasive account of skeptical language must explain both speaking and understanding (Corti 2009, Part III).