Bridging different ways of seeing?

Immigrants and Natives, or so we're told, view their worlds, which is, of course, the same world, differently. Each, it seems, will have to learn to bridge the gap between them. With that in mind, it's perhaps a fitting date tie-in that on this day, in 1826, what is generally considered the first modern suspension bridge, the Menai bridge that connects between Wales and the island of Anglesey, was opened.

I've only seen photographs of the bridge. From those photographs, it's quite impressive, though when it comes to bridges, I have a very limited frame of reference with which to judge. The bridge does, however, have quite an illustrious history, and has, since 2005, even become a candidate World Heritage Site. For those of us, however, who've never been to Wales, or who have only a limited grasp of engineering history, the bridge is perhaps best known (or even solely known) through Chapter 8 of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. In this chapter, as Alice is about to become a queen, she visits the White Knight who sings her a song that includes the verse:

I heard him then, for I had just
Completed my design
To keep the Menai bridge from rust
By boiling it in wine.
I thanked much for telling me
The way he got his wealth,
But chiefly for his wish that he
Might drink my noble health.

Somewhat to my surprise, and to a certain degree my disappointment, Martin Gardner, in his wonderful The Annotated Alice (which, to my dismay, I had to check in a library), has close to nothing to say about this passage:

The Mani Bridge is a famous suspension bridge across the Menai Straits in North Wales. It was completed in 1826. As a child, Carroll had crossed the bridge on a long holiday trip with his family.

Then again, though the bridge plays only a minor role in the Alice books, it's place in engineering history is well secured.

Go to: Carrying cognitive baggage from the old country