The Silent Majority: Malih Has Been Surpassed

The digital generation knows its way around search engines, digging up everything except words, proverbs, and terms that have become part of our heritage; they simply ask about them directly. The latest example is “ta’adat milh” (exceeded the salt), which I occasionally type into my WhatsApp status.

The issue now is not a lack of knowledge about the meaning of “ta’adat milh,” which will be explained later. However, viewing this matter from a different angle, I found that the very ignorance of the existence of “ta’adat milh” provides a worrying indicator: Generation Z is unfamiliar with the TV series “Darb al-Zalaq,” in which this proverb was used. This implies that the chain of viewers of that series, which first aired on September 16, 1977, and remained continuous until recently, has reached its end.

This end means a great deal to me, because my experience with “Darb al-Zalaq” was not merely as a great comedic series, but as a link connecting successive generations born after its broadcast, and as a cultural incubator for dozens of Kuwaiti and Gulf vocabulary terms that remained alive on the lips of those generations. This preserved a minimum level of mutual understanding among them in a rapidly changing and highly influenced society, due to its frequent contact with multiple languages and dialects.

Until recently, I was reassured by the strength of this generational bond, “Darb al-Zalaq,” even after the spread of movie and series streaming apps and social media, because clips from that exceptional series found numerous reasons to be recalled in every present-day situation that mirrored a similar scenario in the show. Today, however, it appears that this bond is facing the risk of being severed.

Now, regarding the meaning of “ta’adat milh”: it means exceeding a reasonable limit in something, or increasing an element to such an extent that it spoils its quality. This meaning originally came from the kitchen: if too much salt is added to a pot beyond the required amount, the entire dish is ruined because it becomes overly salty. Over time, the expression evolved to refer to anything that goes beyond its acceptable frame in discussions, actions, or even reactions.