Words are fascinating things.  As a lifelong word artist, I'm intrigued by phrases and word choice.  Lots of times a seemingly insignificant word indicates a host of unspoken background.  It's like a curtain opening a crack and suddenly you realize an entire dramatic production is being played out behind the curtain.

             So it was today when I read the big national story about the Indiana farmer dumping 30,000 gallons of milk onto his fields.  And it looks like that will be repeated half a dozen times. 

             When asked about why he didn't just at least give the milk away, he said "he couldn't" give it away.  That word "couldn't" is the focus of this posting.  As the article goes on, he found a processor to pasteurize the milk and he did in fact give away a hundred gallons.

             To the casual reader, this insignificant "couldn't give it away" is a fairly benign word, almost a comma in the story.  The obvious question is why "couldn't" he give it away?  Was it illegal?  Was it unethical?  Was it dangerous?  Was it logistically impossible?

             We may never know the answers to these questions, but in the context of the story and the latter give-away after finding a processor that would pasteurize it, my bet is that the "couldn't" meant the farmer believed the milk was not acceptable for human consumption until it had been pasteurized.  He didn't have a pasteurizer.

             He's milking 1,200 cows in a confinement situation.  From the article, I'd say those cows have never walked on pasture or nipped off a blade of grass.  The milk quality?  Questionable, to be sure.  In fact, many of these industrial farmers won't drink their own milk until it's been pasteurized (heated to kill microbes).

             Dumping milk like this has never been done in history.  At least this milk should have been sold to someone with pigs; pigs would love this stuff.  But no, the pigs are somewhere else on self-feeders in confinement houses where feeding milk is too difficult.  In this case, the "couldn't" indicates logistical difficulties--but no reader thought about this.  It certainly wasn't a legal issue.

             Of course this milk could have been given to people to drink.  A milk truck could have gone right down into Chicago or Indianapolis and people could have come with jugs to the open tap and filled them up.  That would have been legal, so why was this option a "couldn't?"  Well, because it was too hard or the farmer and friends didn't feel comfortable letting folks drink raw milk.  Lots of bogeymen here.

             The casual undiscerning reader of the story, however, never hears the nuances of "couldn't" give the milk away.  Like a lot of journalism these days, the story leaves more questions than answers because the reporters fail to seek the most important information.  Does it matter whether the proper word was "wouldn't" rather than "couldn't?"  If the farmer had said he "wouldn't give the milk away," that would create a very different impression than "couldn't."

             "Couldn't" indicates he had no options, that his hands were tied.  But they weren't.  Unquestionably he could have given the milk to people, pigs, or chickens.  So the "couldn't" was bound up in perceptions of hurdles, not real hurdles.  The milk could have been given to a cheese maker to make aged cheese, which enjoys less regulatory scrutiny (as opposed to non-aged cheese).  How about taking the milk truck downtown and asking everyone to bring their ice cream churns and turn the cream into butter?   It doesn't take much brainstorming to quickly realize the farmer had many alternatives.  Which brings us back to using the word "couldn't" rather than "wouldn't." 

             I suggest that this industrial farmer's mindset and the system in which he operates enslaved his creativity and all this dysfunction came out in the word "couldn't."  The truth is, he "wouldn't" and what a difference that would make.

             Can you think of another use for this milk?

**Thank you to our friend Ballerino Creamery for the use of her image**