The notion of analogizing learning objects as words seems to be getting popular again. “Learning objects, formal languages, grammars, and instructional design”:https://opencontent.org/docs/lo_grammar.pdf quickly summarizes my thinking on the topic and goes on to argue that formal grammars (ala linguistics or computer science) can be used to describe certain scenarios of learning objects use in a formal, unambiguous manner. (Of course, the class of use scenarios I find most interesting _can’t_ be described this way.) The paper suggests some other uses for formal languages in ID, including the development of standard metamodels for families of instructional design approaches.