In class today, I had another American moment, as I'm starting to call these little mental disconnects when my lack of Britishness causes me to say something stupid.
Last time, I was scribbling notes furiously as the instructor pointed to a slide of the dome of St Paul's and explained that the dome rested on an inverted "salsa".
"A salsa?" I said. "How do you spell that?"
"Salsa," he replied. "A salsa. S-a-u-c-e-r."
"Oh, a saucer!" I exclaimed, pronouncing it correctly, with an R on the end. It was not, after all, some new architectural term I was unfamiliar with; it was merely the quaint British custom of neglecting to pronounce the 18th letter of the alphabet.
Then today, I was nodding off while we talked more about churches in London, specifically the ones built by Hawkesmoor after the New Churches in London Act of 1711. The instructor explained that while the original act was to build 50 churches, only about 12 were actually built, due to the fact they ran out of money.
It occurred to me, just exactly who was they? So I asked, and the answer woke me up. The government was paying for the churches to be built, with the help of a coal tax. A century later, they proposed to build 100 new churches, but again ran short of funds.
"That blows my mind!" I blurted, then, a little quieter, added, "I guess it's the American in me."
This time, no one laughed.
I spent the rest of the class pondering this, despite a tantalizing discussion of the finer points of St Mary Woolnoth church. It occurred to me, your views on the separation of church and state are pretty much dependent on whether or not you pronounce the letter R.
