ABSTRACT
In the 1983 edition of their popular introductory linguistics textbook, Victoria Fromkin and Robert Rodman reproduce a cartoon in which two disgruntled cavemen are attempting to converse. One says to the other: ‘f w wnt t tlk rlly gd, w’ll hv t nvnt vwls’ (p. 47). For Fromkin and Rodman’s purposes, this is a joke about phonetics. For my purposes it contains a deeper insight into languageusing as a human activity: that humans do not just use language, they comment on the language they use. Frequently they find it wanting and, like the cavemen, propose to improve it.
