Language
Author: Joan Harman
October 21, 2021
KIMCHI, SILO AND ME
Language is a living
entity, and just forget the delineations on chemistry charts. Words go away, words introduce
themselves. Words change meanings.
My generation’s, “Just
do whatever works best,” has morphed to, “Game on!”
The staff or faculty
we worked with became our cohort.
Where we used to say,
“Look it up in the encyclopedia,” we now ask, “Don’t you have an app for
that?” or “Did you Google it?” to “I’ll
send you a link to a YouTube video of that.”
Social services that
referred to counsel, therapy, perhaps medicine have become scaffolding, the
structure of helping all varieties of people recover from the neglect or the
long covids of life.
Silo, an old word from
our agricultural –based economy, has been adapted to our post-industrial
political life.
One of my
grandchildren once asked me if I went to school with Abraham Lincoln.
When Abraham Lincoln
and I farmed and raised cows, especially milking cows, silo was a round above
ground structure attached to or connecting to a barn. Chopped green plants like timothy, trefoil,
and alfalfa were blown into the silo after the prime cutting had been baled for
barn storage. This provided rich
minerals, vitamins, and green energy. At
the end of harvesting grains, any leftover stalks and cobs were chopped and
lofted into the silo, adding necessary fiber and trapped sugars.
Raw materials and time
in above ground holders………and Voila! Kimchi for Cows. Silage aids
digestion and milk production in the cold winters where no grass is available
for grazing. A Kimchi Cow is a Happy
Cow.
While my husband and I
were farming, the Cold War between the USA and the Soviet Union led to
proliferation of various nuclear weapons. The shape of the ICBMs led them to be housed in silos for security and ease
of launch.
And the nuclear
torpedoes mounted in tubes in submarines or deck-mounted on other ships were
also cylinder shaped. One could write
memoirs or stand –up comedy jokes about how these did not tend toward
tranquility, but instead led to protests.
Which now brings us up
to the current use of silo, also leading to protests of various kinds. The political-cultural meaning of silo now
is a place (as a noun) or an action (as a verb). Each of the following entries is quoted
from The Joan Dictionary of 2021.
Silo n. a place of
storage for ideas, usually indicating ideas held by individuals but may also
indicate the same idea held by whole groups of like-minded people. The space is pictured as circular, perhaps
because no one is exactly sure how any of the ideas blew in. The “How did we get here from there?”
syndrome.
Silo v. To store a
certain set of ideas and values to make them secure against other opinions
intruding into the enclosed space. These
ideas spiral around for some length of time.
Could we follow the
farm analogy to think of silos as nutritious containers? The silos we are now in while we foment, OOPS
ferment, new ideas, might discharge some nutritious future food. Could this time of unhelpful energies and
leftovers lead to future health and productivity in our political and social
life together?
P.S. If it sits in the silo too long, it can
spoil..
Blessings of food,
Joan K. Harman <><<><
joanharmank@gmail.com
BACK