So many different kinds of understandings about language have been analyzed under the rubric of language ideology that the time is past due for some distinctions among these kinds to be made. In this paper I identify two different kinds of realizations of Tongan language ideology about the use of lexical honorifics. I describe how Tongans make sense of past situations where, from their point of view, lexical honorifics “should” have been used, but weren't. I argue that Tongan sense-making practices constitute a phenomenological metapragmatics that has properties distinct from those of normative language ideology about honorific use in Tonga. I offer this paper as a tribute to Jane Hill's contribution to the study of honorifics and their place in language ideologies through her research with Mexicano (Nahuatl) speakers in Mexico.