ABSTRACT
Language has been compared variously with either bodily organs such as legs or hands, or else man-made tools like axes and hammers. Related to the view that language is a mental organ is that it is optimally suited to the requirements of human communication and that it is therefore best left alone: given no human interference it will adapt to the communicative purpose it is put to. If language is viewed as a tool, however, there is ample room for the possibility of a misfit between language and the world or its communicative tasks. This constitutes a justification for direct human interference in order to make it a more adequate tool.
