Essential English phrases

Roughly November to April, when the winter residents arrive and the population, the traffic, the restaurant waits and the rents all rise together. 'It's season' is the local explanation for anything crowded, and it is usually the right one.

Someone who lives here for the winter and somewhere colder for the summer. Whole condo buildings run on this rhythm, which is why so many leases and boards distinguish between seasonal and year-round residents.

The highest tides of the year, in September and October, when sea water comes up through storm drains and floods low streets on a completely sunny day. Not a storm, entirely predictable, and the reason the city publishes a tide calendar.

The Intracoastal Waterway — the protected channel running behind the barrier island. It divides the beach from the mainland, its bridges open for boats on a schedule, and 'the bridge was up' is an accepted reason for being late.

State Road A1A, the beachfront road along the barrier island. Used as an address, a landmark and a direction: 'it's on A1A' locates something precisely enough for anyone local.

Laminated hurricane-rated glazing that replaced the ritual of screwing plywood over the windows. A building with them is materially cheaper to insure, so 'impact windows' appears in listings the way 'off-street parking' does elsewhere.

The FEMA flood map designation for a property. AE means a mapped high-risk zone where a federally backed mortgage requires flood insurance; X is outside it. It is the first thing anyone here asks about a house, before the number of bedrooms.

The National Hurricane Center's forecast cone of uncertainty. Locals will tell you, correctly, that it shows where the storm's centre might go and says nothing about how wide the damage is — being outside the cone is not being safe.

Florida's traveller information line and app, run by the state transport department — traffic, lane closures and, in a hurricane, evacuation route conditions. The number people actually dial when a storm is coming.

The dominant Florida supermarket chain, and the deli sandwich made to order at its counter, which people are genuinely partisan about. Publix also closes early before a storm, which is how you know the storm is real.

Sweetened Cuban espresso. A cafecito is one shot; a colada is the large one that comes with a stack of thimble cups and is meant to be shared round an office. Refusing it reads as antisocial rather than abstemious.

'What's happening?' and the standard reply, in Haitian Creole. Broward has one of the largest Haitian communities in the United States, and Creole is the second or third language across large parts of the county.

The city's own nickname, from roughly 165 miles of navigable inland waterways carved out of mangrove in the 1920s. It explains both the property premium on a dock and the drainage problem underneath everything.

Wilton Drive in Wilton Manors, the centre of one of the most concentrated LGBTQ+ communities in the country. Wilton Manors is a separate city with its own government, not a Fort Lauderdale neighbourhood, however the postal address reads.