Essential English phrases

The official State Question of New Mexico, adopted by the legislature — which chile do you want on it. Red is dried and earthier, green is roasted and brighter, and the answer 'Christmas' gets you both. You will be asked this within your first week and there is no neutral option.

Roasted New Mexico chile, spelled with an 'e' and never confused with Texan chili. Harvest is late August to September, the roasters appear in supermarket car parks, and households buy a sack and freeze it for the year. It goes on everything, including cheeseburgers.

Albuquerque, named for the Duke of Alburquerque, the Spanish viceroy the 1706 villa was named after. The first 'r' was dropped somewhere along the way and nobody has put it back.

A communal irrigation ditch, a system of water governance brought from Spain and Moorish North Africa and still legally operating in the valley. Some are administered by elected mayordomos and they carry water rights older than the state.

The Albuquerque Box — a local wind pattern in which surface winds run one way along the valley and winds a few hundred metres up run the other, letting balloon pilots fly out and come back to where they started. It is why the world's largest balloon fiesta happens here rather than somewhere flatter.

Gross receipts tax — New Mexico's alternative to a sales tax, levied on the SELLER's receipts rather than on the buyer's purchase. It therefore reaches services that a sales tax does not, and if you are self-employed you owe it on your own invoices.

The Northeast Heights, the sprawling mid-century half of the city that climbs towards the Sandia Mountains. Distinct from the Valley (along the river), Downtown, and the Westside across the Rio Grande. People locate themselves by these four terms constantly.

An evaporative cooler — a box on the roof that pulls outside air through wet pads. It only works in dry air, which is exactly what this city has, and it costs a fraction of refrigerated air conditioning to run. It also needs starting up in spring and draining before the first freeze, and in a rental the lease says whose job that is.

The mountain range on the eastern edge of the city, topping out at 3,255 m. 'Sandía' is Spanish for watermelon, for the pink the granite turns at sunset. Everyone in Albuquerque navigates by them: the mountains are east, full stop.

The stretch of Central Avenue — historic Route 66 — east of the university, with the neon, the independent shops and the closest thing the city has to a walkable high street.

The cottonwood forest along the Rio Grande running the length of the city — the largest of its kind in North America. It is Albuquerque's central park, its cycling corridor and the reason the valley is green in a desert.

The July-to-September wet season, when afternoon thunderstorms build over the mountains and drop most of the year's rain in short violent bursts. Arroyos that were dry that morning become dangerous within minutes — never drive into a flooded one.

A dry channel that carries flash flood water during the monsoon. The city is threaded with them, they are engineered as drainage, and 'turn around, don't drown' is a genuine local instruction rather than a slogan.

The free health and social services referral line for New Mexico. It is the number for housing help, utility assistance and benefits questions — 911 stays for emergencies.