While deliberating on the use and utterance of sentences, Strawson identified some irreconcilable arguments in Russell's theory of description in reference to the use of structure of expressions as "the so-and-so". The differendum of Russell's theory of descriptions is not the proper definition of his theory because on his account, every sentence is endowed with a grammatical form of having the subject-predicate structure, and if a sentence satisfies this sort of structure then it is a significant sentence. For example, "The King of France is wise". Let's symbolically represent it as S.

There are two bad arguments associated with sentences like S which contain definite descriptions having no concrete individual/object corresponding to the definite descriptions. The S is significant though its subject part "The king of France".

1. The phrase "the king of France" is the subject of the sentence S.
2. If S is significant then S is a sentence about the king of France.
3. If there is no sense exists 'a king of France', the sentence is not about anything and hence not about the king of France.
4. Therefore, since S is significant, there must be in some sense (in some world) exist (or subsist) 'the king of France'.

The second argument is;

1. If S is significant, it is either true or false.
2. S is true if the king of France is wise and false if the king of France is not wise.
3. If the king of France is wise, then there is something, which is the king of France.
4. If the king of France is not wise, then there is something which is the king of France.
5. Therefore, as S is significant, there is something which is the king of France.

Both of the above two arguments lead to the conclusion of ascribing reality (existence) to unreals (non-existents). Strawson appreciates Russell's analysis of definite descriptions on the point that Russell's analysis does not subscribe to the above conclusion; it does not ascribe reality to unreals. However, Russell's analysis is criticized on the ground that it too subscribes to the idea that the sentence S is significant means that S is either true or false.