Essential English phrases

Mount Rainier is visible today. It is hidden behind cloud most of the year, so its appearance is genuinely remarked upon — you will start doing it too.

University Way NE, the main student street beside the University of Washington. Not to be confused with any other avenue.

Puget Sound, the inland sea the city sits on. 'On the Sound' and 'across the Sound' are everyday geography here.

A gap in the cloud, and a genuine term in local weather forecasts. Between October and May it is the operative unit of good weather.

The local reputation for being polite but hard to actually befriend. Newcomers debate whether it is real; most eventually concede it is, and that joining a structured activity is the cure.

Seattleites famously wait for the crossing signal even on an empty street at 2am. Newcomers from New York find this astonishing. Legalised in 2024, and people still wait.

Expensive. A very Pacific Northwest word — 'that place is pretty spendy'.

Seattle, for the evergreen forest that surrounds it. The nickname is earned — the tree cover is genuinely dense for a US city this size.

Pacific Northwest — the regional identity, encompassing Washington, Oregon and often British Columbia. Used as an adjective for everything from weather to fleece.

The regional transit card, working across buses, light rail, ferries and the streetcar. One card, several agencies.

In Seattle this means a specific local institution — cheap grilled chicken teriyaki shops, a Japanese-American creation refined here in the 1970s and found on nearly every block.

911 for emergencies. Seattle uses a customer service line rather than a 311 number for non-emergency city services.