Missouri, 2024: fluent English is not Midwestern English

I came to Saint Louis to teach Spanish and Turkish, which meant my English was supposed to be the easy part. It was not the easy part.

On day one somebody walked past me in a corridor and said "how's it going?" without breaking stride. I stopped and started answering. They were already gone. It took me a week to understand that the question is punctuation, not an enquiry.

Then there is the noise. Someone reaches past you for a coffee cup and says "ope". It is not a word so much as a small apology in sound form, and once you notice it you hear it forty times a day.

Missouri sits on the edge of the South, so "y'all" is everywhere, and it is genuinely useful — English has needed a plural you for centuries and here it quietly has one.

The classroom taught me the rest. Teenagers are the fastest editors of adult speech on earth. Say something slightly wrong and you will be told, kindly, immediately, and with an example.

What I took from it is something I now say to every student: fluency is not a finish line. It is a thing you keep adjusting every time you move.