&gt; we should rarely attribute meaninglessness to statements unless we are forced to.<p>You don&#x27;t “attribute meaninglessness” to statements. Syntax is a priori meaningless, and the rules for manipulating it give it meaning. “Meaninglessness” is thus just the lack of a given meaning.<p>&gt; You would have to have very compelling reasons for analyzing mathematical statements the way you want to, and I haven&#x27;t heard any, only your conviction that it&#x27;s right.<p>Here&#x27;s a good reason: leveraging the power and reliability of computers for doing mathematics, which is only possible if syntax is mechanically interpretable. The kind of word tricks you suggest, like interpreting a sentence containing the phrase “the King of France” as implicitly asserting the existence (and uniqueness) of a King of France (in addition to whatever you explicitly say about him), are incompatible with a nice, compositional, crystal clear, reliable, mechanical interpretation of syntax.