This conversation on what constitutes "good" and "bad" English will investigate style and syntax with an eye towards how stylistic codes can be deployed as structures that reinforce power and control. It will also focus on literary translation as a frontier where those codes are challenged and reworked. Through examining these rules of writing, we will ask: whose rules? And to what extent does a writer need to abide by them? How can literary translation lead to new ways of envisioning our uses of English?