“There’s a seductive ambiguity to the apéro dinatoire,” says party planner Bronson van Wyck, whose clients have included Madonna, Beyoncé, and Hillary Clinton. “It’s a cocktail party. It’s a dinner. It’s foreplay. The French have always excelled at the art of suggestion.”
One of the grandest—and most obnoxious—traditions in the English language has always been the importation of French words to euphemize, to elevate, to distract.
