Main point: though there is a sense in which all utterances can be said to be 'performative' (i.e. they are all doing something in addition to saying something), there are two subclasses which have also been called 'performative' to contrast them with other utterances, viz. (i) those which by 'convention' (over and above what the words uttered conventionally mean) constitute doing something, and (ii) those which are 'explicitly' performative (i.e. with a performative verb in the first person singular present indicative active). All these uses of the term 'performative' are legitimate, but as a result the term is confusing.