OCTOBER 2025: The World Through Words – CHEESE.

Words have traditionally been the backbone of intelligent communications. Some researchers suggest that humans began using spoken words, anywhere between 50000 and 70000 years ago. Words then were often just a collation of sounds, but they seemed to have served their purpose. How they managed their communications in their worlds so long ago can only be imagined!

Today, in the second millennium of the common era, as per Ethnologue, which is a language catalogue and resource site, there are around 7111 languages in the world (not including dialects, sign languages) with an estimated 840 million words.

And with such a surfeit of languages and words, our world should naturally (if not certainly!) be a very interesting one for those of us who will only take some time from our busy routines, to peek into the world of words.

This time, the random word that has surfaced is CHEESE.

Charles de Gaulle, the nationalist French President is known to have wondered “How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?”

Well, even as turophiles (tur-uh-file – cheese lover) disagree with that French statesman, many may still find it interesting to know that cheese is much more than a popular food!

Historically, cheese (especially the parmesan variety) has had a financial use dating back to at least 1200 CE, serving as a form of wealth and a medium of exchange in some contexts. The value of the compact, aged cheese and the lengthy maturation process (up to two years or more) made it a suitable form of collateral for financial institutions.

In modern times too, cheese as currency is a practice that some regional banks in Italy still accept, based on a long-standing system where farmers can receive cash loans against deposits of their cheese with the bank, which then stores and ages them in their warehouses, while retaining them as collateral. This innovative system provides crucial liquidity to dairy farmers, bridging the financial gap between the production of cheese and its eventual sale to consumers.

Cheese has played an unintentional but effective role (the Swiss Cheese bidding process) in the public procurement processes of governments and corporations that are keen to showcase their perceived neutrality in ensuring a fair competition for public infrastructure and large service projects.  

And one may wonder how all children have to be cajoled to eat cheese, but who would have thought that The Tiger Who Ate Too Much Cheese is a children's story about a tiger's unusual dietary indulgence!

Cheese, it must be admitted, continues to exert so much influence in our daily lives. How else can we explain the following phrases!

She is a Big Cheese – an important or powerful person.

Say Cheese – phrase used to make people smile for a photograph.

The Cheese stands alone – someone isolated or left alone.

He always sports a Cheesy grin – exaggerated or insincere smile.

Now that’s a Cheesy joke – a silly, corny or overly sentimental joke.

Smile like a Cheshire Cat – to smile broadly or smugly.

That’s the way the cheese crumbles – things don’t always go as planned.

All said and done, is there any better excuse for all our unexplained idiosyncrasies than to just say that between us, we are like cheese and chalk!