Sipping a word like brandy

In Doris Lessing’s story ‘A Road to the Big City’, published in her 1957 collection The Habit of Loving (my Penguin paperback edition, pictured, is from 1960), two young women, sisters, are travelling by train in Johannesburg.

Marie, the younger, and Lilla sit at a table with a middle-aged man and allow him to buy them drinks. Lilla, who considers her sister unworldly, chooses brandy for them both. It’s Marie’s first time drinking it.

The three get to talking about their plans and backgrounds:

‘Mom is old-fashioned,’ said Marie. She said the word old-fashioned carefully; it was not hers, but Lilla’s; she was tasting it, in the way she sipped at the brandy, trying it out, determined to like it.

It’s common knowledge that we can eat our words (they’re tasty!). It’s less well known that we can drink them too, sampling their flavour on our tongue, testing their effect on our sense of self.

Do you remember trying out a word like this for the first time, wanting to make it your own? What word will you be sipping like brandy today?

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