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The English language is rich in ironies and quirks, twists, turns and byways, which makes it such a delight to play with and enjoy. So when it comes to dentistry and dental terms it should be no surprise to discover similar duplicities of merry meanings. Aspiration, for example. Now, turn over your question papers and begin... Aspiration - discuss.

Straight away we hit the dilemma, don't we? If this had been a 'general education' type exam we would have pondered for a moment or two, doodled on a sheet of scrap paper (remembering to have first crossed it through diagonally so that it didn't get handed in as part of the answer script), glanced round the hall to see which of our colleagues were already scribbling away madly and then plunged into an answer along the lines of career opportunities or some such 'aspirational' route.

But it depends on context, because if the same question had been posed in a dentally orientated assessment we would instead launch into a detailed description of the noisy sucking out of fluids, notably saliva, from the oral cavity. And what a comprehensive dissertation we could give. Weaving a clever path through the allied topics of cross-infection control, four-handed dentistry, maintenance of equipment and keeping a dry field, we would stop off at the use of rubber dam, call-by the importance of tip shape and calibre, and if time permitted possibly meander down the slightly overgrown cul de sac of xerostomia and the sticking of saliva ejectors to dry mucosa.

Then again, if we were to see an article headed 'Aspirations' in a Sunday newspaper supplement a whole barrel load of other images would spring to mind. Indeed, it may well be that the word would be used as the title of one of those compact little advertising brochures which are given life and nurtured in the ample folds of the supplement itself. The glossy booklets that lure us in with promises of heavily padded garden kneelers to save our joints ever creaking again as we dib-in next season's bulbs, or seduce us with assurances that never in future will we be caught out wanting a spare toilet tissue holder that tells us the time in São Paulo or the temperature in both Fahrenheit and Centigrade at the touch of a digit sensitive LED display.

However, this is the type of aspiration that guides and graces our thoughts, words and deeds each day, whether hard at work in the practice, languishing on the beach or driving the children to yet another netball practice session. Not the messy aspiration of lumpy mucus disappearing with slurpy efficiency down a metal tube but the subtle craving for lifestyle change. Advertisers realise it through and through, it is their life's blood. For them aspiration doesn't form a single short-answer question but a whole exam, a syllabus, degrees, PhDs. Why else are we bombarded with the paraphernalia of goods and services couched in such particular ways? We are all familiar with the underlying psychology but often choose either to ignore it, or indeed to lie back and be seduced by it. Either way, none of the copy or the images is there by accident, they are all carefully selected, pawed over and endless discussed in public relations power meetings around the land.

Next time you shake out the inserts from a dental publication, hover a moment over the pictures you see. The surgery work-wear advert for example. What is the background to the smiley faces posed somewhat awkwardly holding a mirror and probe? Is it the view out of an inner city practice window with spray-paint graffiti up the council estate walls? Probably not. Not only will the expertly cut, heavy-duty yet lightweight pastel shaded cotton-twill culottes make you feel comfy in the gusset department, they will also imply that you will be smoothing your patient flow in the surroundings of a converted Grade II listed barn in a rural idyll, or pausing momentarily between implants to gaze contentedly over the rainbow flecked spume of a crashing ocean.

Even if you don't practice in rustic bliss... make your patients feel that, with a smile provided by you, they can aspire to live in such places themselves.

But it is not just us who are subject to this influence, it is our patients as well. When they come to us they aspire to something too. It may not be quite as clear cut as lemon-rinse scented casual clothing but it could well be as blindly obvious as wanting to look good. Why else the stampede for tooth bleaching and the wonder at veneers? So, clearly, the trick is to convert what we're talking about into what they want to hear us talking about. Instead of aspiration (dribble collection) think, design and talk aspiration (fast cars, Malibu holidays, private education, Belgian chocolates - well, perhaps not Belgian chocolates). Even if you don't practice in rustic bliss or with a shoreline panorama, make your patients feel that, with a smile provided by you, they can aspire to live in such places themselves.

Applied across all that we do, there is ample opportunity to look at the services we offer and the treatments we provide in exactly the same way we choose the things that we 'like', 'want' and 'need'. To put it squarely in the jargon of the marketplace, 'Aspiration is the new nostalgia'.

So, where else can we use this new-found double meaning method of applied communication? Restoration falls in the dictionary between restaurant and result... discuss.