Linguistic Anthropology is everywhere

My friends and I went to Steak 'n' Shake over the weekend, and one of my friends decided to get a kid's menu to have something to do during the wait. Over half the games on the place mat were metalingual! It made me really excited! There was a word search; madlibs- a game where you fill in empty spaces in a story (they tell you to choose and adjective, noun, number, verb etc); a game where you have to find an item in the restaurant that begins with each letter of the alphabet; Scrambled letters that you had to unscramble to find words; and a few others;.

One things that I thought was interesting was that these games were all on a children's menu. All of these games have to do with drawing attention to words, spelling, or how words are used. The madlib game in particular was playing with grammar by changing words in a story with the same type of words. The story that was made was silly and nonsensical most of the time but some of the insertions actually made sense.

It is also interesting that these games were targeted towards children. However, most of these games appeal to a wider audience. There are word searches and scrambled words in newspapers that are targeted towards adults. On road trips my family plays a game where you have to find the letters of the alphabet in order on signs that you pass. In high school gym class, when my friend and I did not feel like participating, we would stand in the field and play a game where you have to create a list of items in alphabetical order, reciting the list that has already been made and then adding an item of the next letter of the alphabet in order.- Both these games are similar to the game at Steak 'n' Shake. It seems that metalingual games are all around as ways to pass the time and are not just for children.