Nuts and Bolts: metalanguage.

Metalanguage is what happens when language starts navel-gazing.

For instance, once you start talking about the form of a language - let's call it English - and you begin using words like, well, word and noun, for instance, then you're commenting on English, and so logically you must be speaking a slightly different language from English itself.

It then follows, of course (if you accept that's true), that it's possible to comment upon your comment, and comment upon your comment upon your comment, and comment upon...but you get the idea. Then, you lucky thing, you have nested metalanguages. 

It's all a bit hair-splitting, but there is a straightforward example of nested metalanguages. This is the way species are described scientifically.

If you take the example of a wolf:

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivore
Family: Canis
Species: lupus

You see? Each layer of identification is a comment on (in a way) the one before.

Yes, it is a bit of a stretch, but hey...

Does any of this metalanguage stuff actually matter?

Only as an illustration of the minds of academics.

But then people are always fascinating, aren't they.

Word Probably To Decide Not To Use Today: metalanguage. The Greek word meta means with, after, between, among...more or less anything, really.The word language comes from the Latin lingua, tongue.