 Now, if this sentence actually appeared in one of the Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, then that token of it would not be true — it would be a bit of fiction. But if you were telling a child about these stories, and the child asked, “What does Holmes do for a living?”, and you answered by uttering (G), then it seems plausible to suppose that what you have said is true. But if it is true, then it seems that its singular term, ‘Sherlock Holmes’, must refer to something. What it refers to, according to the view in question, is an abstract object, in particular, a fictional character. In short, present-day utterances of (G) are true statements about a fictional character; but if Doyle had put (G) into one his stories, it would not have been true, and its singular term would not have referred to anything.