Essential English phrases

A person from Indiana. Nobody agrees on where the word came from and every local has a favourite theory, which is itself the standard conversational opener. It is affectionate, and used about yourself as readily as about anyone else.

The three nicknames, in ascending order of formality. 'Circle City' comes from Monument Circle at the centre of the street grid; 'Naptown' is older and used with a certain wryness about the city's reputation for being quiet.

The Indianapolis 500 on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, the whole of May built around it, and Carb Day — the Friday before, a public holiday in spirit if not in law. The city's calendar genuinely bends around this.

'Back Home Again in Indiana', sung immediately before the green flag at the 500. It is the closest thing the state has to a second anthem, and if you are in a room when it plays, people stand.

The state's basketball obsession, which runs from high school gyms upward. Indiana has some of the largest high school basketball arenas in the country, and the sport is a genuine social organising principle rather than a pastime.

Marion County's nine townships — Center, Washington, Wayne, Perry, Pike, Warren, Lawrence, Franklin, Decatur — are a live layer of government here, not a historical relic. School districts are organised by township, and so is the trustee's office. People describe where they live by township constantly.

An elected township official who administers emergency assistance — rent, utilities, funeral costs — for residents in crisis. It is a genuinely unusual layer of American local government and it is the first place a caseworker will send someone in trouble. Worth knowing exists before you need it.

Beech Grove, Lawrence, Southport and the town of Speedway sat out the 1970 city-county merger and still run their own governments inside Marion County. They have their own police, courts and codes. Your address may be in one of them without saying so.

The involuntary Midwestern syllable emitted when you brush past someone in a shop aisle, usually followed by 'just gonna sneak right past ya'. Newcomers notice it within a week and are saying it within a month.

Monument Circle, with the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument at its centre. The city's numbered street grid radiates from it, so 'north of the Circle' and 'a few blocks off the Circle' are how downtown directions are actually given.

An eight-mile protected walking and cycling path threading the six downtown cultural districts, separated from traffic for almost its whole length. It is the piece of infrastructure locals are proudest of and the easiest way to get around the centre without a car.

A pounded, breaded pork cutlet served in a bun roughly a third its diameter. It is the state sandwich, the overhang is the point, and arguing about who makes the best one is a legitimate way to pass an evening.

Indiana's official state pie — cream, sugar and nutmeg, no eggs. Sometimes called Hoosier pie. Traditionally what you made in winter when there was no fruit left.