It takes me three minutes to shave and roughly the same time to empty the dishwasher. I know this because while doing one or the other, I can heat my tea in the microwave oven. I cannot shave and put the clean dishes away at the same time, but I can start the microwave and then do something else while the microwave oven heats the water with the tea bags in it.
I can also start the dishwasher and do something else. That machine makes a great deal of noise, noise of the kind that demands attention, and for far longer than simple tasks it does not distract from. I prefer to run the dishwasher while I sleep or am somewhere else entirely.
When The City on the Edge of Forever first aired, microwave technology was already more than twenty years old. The “Radarange” was not practical until later because of cost and size. People used to refer to the process of heating food in a microwave oven as “nuking” it. “Do you want me to nuke your coffee?”
I am glad that expression seems to have fallen out of use, because of its imprecision about the technology. Common usage suggests we have internalized a unified theory for the act of cooking or reheating, regardless of the form of energy applied or device used.
On the other hand, no one alive today refers to plastic sheets as “oil paper.” Regardless of the form, everyone recognizes plastic in all its manifestations and refers to it the same way universally. A child can identify the differences in recyclables without looking for the symbols.
When fire was first domesticated, how do you suppose the people initially referred to its uses? What it was when it was wild was something different. Its effects were known but associated with danger and destruction.
Likely the way we still talk about fire, both domestically and when it escapes our control, is relatively unchanged since prehistoric times. To this day children are told not play with matches. “Playing with fire” is still a common expression, which clearly shows we are conscious of fire as something not to be trusted entirely. “Getting burned” is bad, whether its food or your fingers, or in a relationship.
Water is another interesting case. Whether in a bucket for fighting fires or a destructive tsunami, it is the same substance. We learn from a young age that cool water on a hot day is good, but if you fall through the ice in a cold place, it’s not good.
“On thin ice” is still used and understood in English, even in places where winter does not freeze water. “Getting into hot water” is still a common expression for trouble, but people still enjoy a warm bath.
The way we speak about ordinary things shows how we feel about them, of course. How conscious we are of the threat or the comfort in various contexts is in the words themselves with the emotions they evoke.
Even older than fire, natural sunlight used for heating, drying, lighting, and other uses may be strangest of all household gods. Think of its history in terms of how people feel about it in different contexts. The dangers of sunlight in different places have been commonly known from prehistory, but getting a good tan has not been eclipsed by the fear of skin cancer. What about vitamin D? Sunstroke?
We seem to have been slower with technology to take another look at sunlight, and to develop something that was there much earlier than other forms of energy for achieving the same results.
I Dwell In Possibility 