 The Mohists’ theory that using names to talk about things is a matter of modeling them can be seen as one version of the commonsense idea that words represent or signify things. But the Mohist notion of “emulating” (nǐ 擬) goes beyond this basic idea. It is part of a broader theory that names of kinds—general terms—enable us to communicate by appeal to shared practices for distinguishing similar from different kinds of things. On the Mohist view, words can represent things because they show us what the thing the speaker “presents” is “the same as” (tóng 同). They show us this because we have previously learned to distinguish the similar kind (lèi 類) of thing denoted by that name. Given this background learning, language tells us what something is “like” (ruò 若) and thus enables us to know (zhī 知) the thing (B70). When someone uses a word to present something, we know that thing is “the same” as other things denoted by that word. Hence using words is a process of “using what people understand to rectify what they don’t know” (B70). The Mohists compare this to using a measuring tool. We can use a ruler to measure length because we know the length of the marks on the ruler and we see that the thing measured is the same length as one of the marks. Analogously, through language, we can use what listeners are familiar with to inform them about what they don’t know. By using a name of something, we indicate that the thing is relevantly similar to the other things conventionally referred to by that name. When we say something is “white,” we are indicating that it is the same color as the other things we call “white.” By grasping the reference of each other’s words in this way, we are able to “connect thoughts” (tōng yì 通意) (B41) and thus to communicate. 