Kisses Sweeter Than Wine

Abstract

Let’s go back to the kissing scene on Martha’s video described in chapter 3. There is something else in that scene that is interesting. During the small talk that followed the kissing action, Ted can be heard saying, “Your kisses are sweeter than wine, Cheryl.” As you might surmise by now, a semiotician would not construe Ted’s statement merely as a figure of speech chosen to embellish his compliment. Unlike most people, who hardly notice such expressions, having become so accustomed to hearing and using them, the semiotician would see Ted’s metaphor as revealing something much more fundamental about human meaning-making than meets the eye (to use a metaphor). To the semiotician, metaphor is the semantic glue that binds all the meaning systems and codes in the system of everyday life together. Language is the code that most reveals how it works.