A Los Angeles speech pathologist is assigned to the case of a presumably mentally-ill woman who speaks in gibberish that turns out to be Old English. When the woman disappears, deciphering her mysterious writing leads the pathologist to wonder if she has stumbled across a time traveler.

A young couple obsessed with syntax sets off to meet their favorite author.

In New York, a young woman goes to a dinner party with her boss’s friend. After a tense game of charades, too many drinks and a decision to spend the night, she wonders why people make the choices they do and if anyone else will remember them.

Following a messy breakup, an MIT graduate and a PhD student at Indiana University separately talk about the problems in their former relationship in two spliced-together conversations, exploring conflicts surrounding language, intimacy, commitment, and intellectualism.

A conversation in a shopping mall ends with a call to security.

A teacher on the Lower East side meets a friendly man with a presence resembling a dead English poet.

A depressed, middle-aged San Francisco writer gives his artificially intelligent alter ego permission to assume his personality in public, resulting in an unexpected boom for the washed-up man.

The characters found in jokes are forced to act out the jokes every time they are told.

When a Soviet state official attempts to coerce a celebrated poet into apologizing for a political joke he made, the official gets a taste of his own predatory medicine at the hand of the poet's vengeful wife.

In his new job as an English professor, Tarzan finds himself annoyed by his students, hounded by his department chair, and alienated by the world around him, with solace only from his girlfriend Jane. Naturally, hijinks ensue.