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Loo - Whether it is short for "Waterloo" or not, the loo is one of my favourite words for "toilet" in any language. You may think it strange that I have a favourite word for "toilet," but you must understand that it is a subject area I have given much thought to and in which I have a bit of experience. (See "Flushing My Way Through Europe.")

Looking Glass - Mirror, à la Alice.

Knock Up - To call on the telephone. (...sorry if I've disappointed anyone.)

Nick -

1. To steal, as in: "'Nicholas Nickleby nicked my knickers!' cried Delilah in despair" (Dickens, Charles, Nicholas the Second: The Return of Nickleby, p.14, ch. 3, verses 4-5).
2. To catch (someone who has been doing something wrong). i.e.: The policeman nicks the robber. It is most commonly used in the reflexive: "I was stealing a bit o' grass from the Duke's lawn and I got nicked by his groundskeeper, what I owe 15 quid to from last week's poker game."

Pavement - This is the sidewalk (also sometimes called a "footpath"). Do not drive on it (see "Driving" in the "Getting About" section).

The Pictures - Movies (as in: "I'm going to the pictures now." "Roight, be 'ome by 'leven thur-ee!").

Post - Mail; to mail something it to post it.

Pram - Baby carriage, as immortalized in the Monty Python song Knights of the Round Table (The Camelot Song): "It's a busy life in Camelot/I have to push the pram a lot."

Prep School - OK. The confusion begins. A prep school in England is where you go around age eight for five years. Afterwards, you continue on to a public school (next).

Public School - A private school (the equivalent of an American prep school or private high school). What do they call a publically-funded school, then? A "State School" (which to us Yanks means a four-year college funded at least in part by the state government). It all gets so confusing. I suspect it has something to do with "O"-levels, but I don't want to get into that here. You have to get a Rhodes Scholarship to study anywhere in England anyway, except for at Oxford where the only admission requirement is that you promise to be insufferably snooty about having gone there after you get out (even snootier than Harvard grads).

Pushchair - A baby stroller. It is different from the pram in that the "pushchair" was not immortalized in the song Knights of the Round Table (The Camelot Song) by Monty Python, nor indeed in any of their songs.

Rubber - This is an eraser, with which one gets rid of stray pencil marks, not a prophylactic device with which one gets rid of stray semen. That, my friends, is simply called a "condom."

Rugger - A nickname for rugby, which is kind of a cross between football and a violent group hug (have you ever seen that "huddle" thing they do at the beginning of each what I, for lack of knowing the proper terminology—maybe "scrum"?—am going to call down?) It does, however, differ from football in a number of respects, chief among them being the fact that they can run any which way they want, that they can toss the ball to whomever they please whilst doing it, and, since they do not wear much protective clothing, that they can inflict much more serious and permanent bodily harm upon each other.

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