Danny Anderson moderates a conversation with Michial Farmer and Nathan Gilmour on the essay "Politics and the English Language" by George Orwell. A freshman-composition workhorse, "Politics" makes composition a matter of ethical deliberation and insists on truthful language. Among the questions, concepts, and other realities pondered are prescriptive and descriptive grammar; pretentious language; meaningless words; and Orwell's intellectual relationships to the New York intellectuals and to Richard Weaver.