It is well understood that a free speech regime needs principles of speech regulation that delineate what speech is protected from sanctions and what speech may be subject to sanctions. It is less well recognized, yet increasingly important, for a free speech regime to articulate principles of interpretation that delineate what content may be attributed to speakers for the purpose of imposing otherwise legitimate legal sanctions. Drawing on both doctrinal and philosophical arguments, this Article defends a heretofore unarticulated First Amendment principle of interpretation that places guardrails on attributing content to lay speakers that they do not explicitly articulate. Specifically, an anti-imputation principle, implicit in a number of First Amendment decisions, imposes a strong (though rebuttable) presumption against levying legal sanctions against lay speakers for objectionable content they do not explicitly say. This presumption holds even when explicit assertions...