You are describing the boot process to a friend and get to the step where the device loads the operating files into RAM, including the kernel. Your friend starts to laugh because she was not aware that there were kernels in her computer. What do you tell her?

I would say, "not those kinds of kernels, when I say kernel, I mean the core of your computers operating system. It controls all of the system components and tell specific parts of the computer to do certain things." or in more compact terms, "think of the kernel as the brain of the computer, telling each system component what to do."