Recipes for Success

Abstract

We spend our lives interpreting, or as Barthes would say ‘reading’, not only the language but also the objects, actions and activities that constitute our environment. If somebody says they are going to have an aperitif we know they are going to have a certain kind of drink as a prelude to a meal. The use of the word ‘aperitif’ and the actual drink they choose, be it whisky, sherry or white wine and cassis, further reveals something of their lifestyle. If, moreover, they should give a self-consciously exaggerated pronunciation to the word ‘aperitif’ itself, we would suggest they are aping their own pretensions to the lifestyle announced by using the word, or even parodying that lifestyle in order to distance themselves from its social implications. They might be saying something such as ‘we like the drink but don’t want to be associated with the social conventions it implies’.