Essential English phrases

A drinking fountain. Universal in Wisconsin, incomprehensible almost everywhere else in America, and the single fastest way to be identified as a local or as a newcomer.

Anywhere in the northern half of Wisconsin, treated as a single destination. Going up nort for a weekend at a lake cabin is what a large share of the city does all summer, and the traffic on Friday afternoons proves it.

Traffic lights. Directions here are given as 'go down to the stop-and-go lights and hang a left', which visitors find charming and residents do not notice saying.

Milwaukee's downtown streetcar, which is free to ride. It is a short loop rather than a transit system, but it is genuinely useful between the Third Ward, downtown and the lower East Side.

Do you want to come along? A direct calque of the German mitkommen, left behind by the nineteenth-century German settlement that built this city. Grammatically incomplete and entirely standard here.

The involuntary Midwestern noise made when you nearly bump into someone, usually followed by 'lemme sneak right past ya'. Entirely sincere and universally used.

The Friday institution — battered cod or perch, potato pancakes, rye bread and coleslaw, at a supper club, a church hall, a bowling alley or a bar. Not a meal so much as a weekly civic obligation, and the first thing to say yes to.

A Wisconsin restaurant type — relish tray, a brandy old fashioned at the bar first, prime rib, and a grasshopper afterwards. Mostly outside the city proper, and the drive is part of it.

The state drink, made with brandy rather than whiskey and topped with lemon-lime soda. Wisconsin drinks a disproportionate share of America's brandy because of it. Order one at a supper club and nobody will blink.

Not ice cream — denser, richer, made with egg yolk and served fresh. Milwaukee treats it as a competitive sport, and every stand has a different flavour of the day posted in advance.

The pale yellow brick made from local lakebed clay that built nineteenth-century Milwaukee and gave the city its nickname. You will see it on half the older buildings once someone points it out.

The plaza and development around Fiserv Forum where the Bucks play. During a playoff run it fills with tens of thousands of people watching on a screen outside, which is one of the better things that happens in this city.

A Wisconsinite, and specifically the foam wedge hat worn at Packers games. Originally an insult from Illinois; adopted here with total enthusiasm, which tells you most of what you need to know about the state's temperament.

The municipal and county vehicle registration fees added on top of the state's. A car registered in the City of Milwaukee pays three layers, and locals complain about it by this name.