Consider ˇnow this application of language: I send someone shopping. I give him a slip of paper, on which

I have written the signs
are the marks

: “five red apples”. He takes it to the groce[s|r]; the grocer opens the

draw
box

that has the

sign
mark

“apples” on it; then he looks [y|u]p the word “red” in a table, and finds opposite it a co[ul|lo]ured square; he now

pronounces
speaks

says out loud the series of cardinal

numerals
numbersch

– I assume that he knows them by heart – up to the word “five” and with each numeral he takes an apple from the box that has the colour of the square ˇfrom the draw. –

In this way & in similar ways one operates
This is how one works

with words. – “But how does he know where and how he is to look up the word ‘red’ and what he has to do with the word ‘five’?” – Well, I am assuming that he a[s|c]ts, as I have described. The [e|E]xplanations come to an end somewhere. – ˇBut [W|w]hat[i|']s the meaning of the word “five”? – There was no question of any ˇsuch an entity ‘meaning’ here; only of the way in which “five” is used. // Nothing of that sort was being discussed, only the way in which “five” is used.

(2015–) Wittgenstein Source Bergen Nachlass Edition (WS-BNE). Edited by the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen under the direction of Alois Pichler. In: Wittgenstein Source, curated by Alois Pichler (2009–) and Joseph Wang-Kathrein (2020–). (N) Bergen: WAB.