I love English. I love the way it sounds—the many ways it sounds. I love the way it looks on the paper, the letters all fitting together just right. I love how it tricks you into thinking it’s easy to learn only for this great big universe to open up just as you figure you’re in the home stretch (from which point on it never once allows you to think, Okay, looks like I got this under control). I love how it keeps changing and evolving, letting a phrase slowly fade away that was all the rage last year while exploding a new word all over that didn’t exist a month ago. I love that there’s no one in charge—no grammar book to rule them all, no one arbiter to appeal to, no nothing. (Meaning no one gets to stop you from saying ‘no nothing,’ among other things.) On a personal note, I get a big kick out of knowing that each time I introduce a new piece of knowledge in class, chances are that that same night a student watching a TV show will give their partner a heart attack by yelling out WE DID THAT TODAY! As far as I’m concerned, that alone makes English a joy to teach. All languages aspire to be beautiful and cool and seen as marching to the beat of their own drum. English just is—so effortlessly and unpretentiously it takes one’s breath away. Does mine anyway.