Wendell Berry examines how the deterioration of language across American culture, from poetry to political discourse, reflects and reinforces a broader disconnection from place, community, and responsibility. Berry argues that when words lose their connection to specific meanings and real-world consequences, speakers can make promises without intending to keep them and describe the world without accurately representing it. He traces this degeneration through literary criticism, finding that contemporary poetry has become so self-referential that it no longer connects to lived experience. He extends his analysis to politics and economics, showing how abstract language allows decision-makers to ignore the concrete effects of their choices on particular places and people. Berry connects linguistic responsibility to ecological responsibility, arguing that people who cannot speak truthfully about land and work cannot care for them properly. The essays draw on Berry's experience as a farmer and his reading in literature and philosophy to develop an ethics of language grounded in attention to the local and particular. He calls for speech that stands behind its words, that means what it says and accepts accountability for consequences. The book challenges readers to examine their own language use and its relationship to their commitments, asking whether their words and their lives cohere.