Pollock

American English to British English Dictionary

P - T

Panhandler

Pants

The word "park" is also used sometimes to mean a large, flat valley surrounded by mountains or hills. This meaning is often applied in place names.

Parkway

A toll road.

A scenic road, for example one of the two toll-free National Parkways, administered by the National Park Service, namely the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Natchez Trace Parkway, or the toll-free Icefields Parkway between Banff and Jasper in the Canadian Rockies (in Alberta).

Pavement

PED XING

Penny

Pilot Car

Pinto Beans

Pinto beans, often just called pintos, are a type of baked bean served as a paste which can be used as a dip.

Po' Boy

Posted

Pre-Columbian

Parent-Teacher Association.

Passenger Transit Authority - the body responsible for a city's public transport.

Public Lands

Public School

Quarter

Quebec

Radio Shack

Rain Check

Ramada

Rapid Transit

Real Estate

Realtor

Realty

Red Hots

[Many thanks to John Hayes (jnhayes@austin360.com) for contributing this entry.]

Refried Beans

Refried beans are similar to baked beans in appearance but rather darker. They have a somewhat stronger flavour, and are served with a Mexican flavour sauce instead of tomato sauce.

"Regular or Decaff?"

Just almost every source of coffee in the USA and Canada will offer you the choice between regular and decaffeinated.

Caffeine is also present in tea and cola.

Reservoir - an artificial lake retained by a dam.

Reserve - a nature or wildlife reserve.

Reservation - an Indian (Native American/First Nation) Reservation.

Restroom

Résumé

Ride Sharing

Roast Beef Sandwich

See Roast Beef Sandwich in the Restaurants section

Rockhound

Root Beer

S and L

Sandwich

Sasquatch

Savings and Loan Association

Season

Senior

Senior Citizen, a retired person. Nowadays, anyone over about fifty. Many discounts are available to senior citizens from motels, restaurants and shops.

A student in their last year at High School, College or University. Junior and Sophomore are the names for students in the earlier years.

San Francisco, the city in California.

Science Fiction.

Shaved Ice

SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome)

Sidewalk

Significant Other

Skillet

Slush Puppy

Soda Pop (or just "Soda")

Speed Zone

Spelunker

Splice

Sprite

Station

Static

Switch

Switchback

Subway

An underground railway.

If you see a building with a large sign outside it saying "Subway" in a small town out in the country then it is far more likely to be a member of the Subway submarine sandwich fast food restaurant chain than an underground railway station.

Sunny Side Up

A taco consists of a fairly large crisp edible corn tortilla shell containing minced beef, shredded lettuce and grated cheese and maybe sauce, sour cream, etc.

Tacos can come in various sizes. For a light snack try two tacos. For a meal you'll need maybe four, five or six. This means that a party can very conveniently share a number of tacos between them according to their different degrees of hunger.

A taco salad is a large edible crisp flour "bowl" containing lettuce, cheese and multiple other ingredients of the salad. One taco salad is a large meal.

Teeter-totter

Territory

Territories in the USA are the District of Columbia, American Samoa and Guam. Puerto Rico is a commonwealth. Alaska and Hawaii were converted from territories to states in 1959.

Territories in Canada are the Northwest Territories and the Yukon, and from 1999 Nunavut.

Texas Red Hots

Texas Toast

Tic Tac Toe

Toonie or Tooney

Tortilla

Tostada

Transmission

Truck Lane

Trunk

Tubing

Turf And Surf

Turnpike

Two bits

"Two bits" is also used as an adjective to mean virtually worthless, for example "Are you still driving that two bit car?". Thus a "two bit computer" is a reference to its perceived worth, not its word length.

Typos