“Well [b|B]ut if someone says ‘Bring me a slab’ it looks now as though he could mean this expression as one long word, – corresponding

that is
namely

to the word one word ‘slab!’.” – Can one mean it sometimes as one word and sometimes as four words? And how does one generally mean it? – I

think
believe

that what we shall be inclined to say: is that we mean the sentence as a sentence of four words when we are using it as contrasted with sentences

like
such as

, “Hand me a slab”, “Bring him a slab”, “Bring two slabs”, etc.: as contrasted, that is, with sentences which contain the words of our command in

other
differentch

combinations. – But what does using one sentence as in contrasted with to other sentences consist in? Does one have these ˇother sentences in mind at the time? And all of them? And while one is speaking the sentence, or before or afterwards? – No. Even if such an explanation has some attraction for us, we have only to

consider
think

f[r|o]r a moment what actually happens in order to see that we are on

a wrong track
the wrong road here

. We say we use th[at|is] command as in contrasted with to other sentences because our language contains the possibility of these other sentences. // because in our language these other sentences are possible. Someone who did not understand our language, a foreigner who had frequently heard someone giving the command “Bring me the slab”, might suppose that this entire series of sounds was one word and corresponded, say, to the word “building

block
stone

” in his language. If he had then to give this command himself, [w|h]e would perhaps pronounce it differently and we

we should say: He pronounces thi it so

queerly
curiously

because he takes thinks it to be is one word. – But then doesn't

something
anything

different happen in him when he u[e|t]ters

it
this sentence

, corresponding to the fact that he takes views regards the sentences to be as one word? The same thing may happen in him, or again something different may. What happens in you when you give a command of that sort? Are you conscious that it consists of four words while you are uttering it? Of course, you

know
have a mastery of

this language, – in which there are those other sentences also, – but is this

knowing
mastery

something that happens while you are uttering the sentence? – And I have admitted, ˇthat the foreigner

who views the sentence differently will probably also pronounce it differently,
will probably give the sentence he views differently a different pronounciation;

but what we call

his
the

wrong

idea
view

doesn't

necessarily
have to lie

in anything that accompanies the uttering of the command. (Of th[at|is] m[l|o]re later.)

(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.