Take something with a pinch of salt

We normally add some salt to our dishes to make them eatable or edible. For instance, when we make chapattis, we add salt to the flour, and not the flour to salt! In other words, we “add salt to taste”.

If the chapatti is made without salt, we find it difficult to eat it.

So, we extend this, figuratively of course, to all things we cannot accept.

It is also used to say, don’t take things as they sound – literally. Be skeptical, use your intelligence!

• I take, whatever my boss says, with a pinch of salt, because he tends to exaggerate.
• She tends to exaggerate, so take her words with a pinch of salt.
• Their accusations are absolutely baseless. We take them with more than a pinch of salt. (They are so useless that you can’t swallow them with even a pinch of salt – you need more!)

The British say a pinch of salt, while the Americans say a grain of salt. (Don’t ask why!)

Some explanations say this came from Pliny the Elder’s antidote to poison. He says “add a grain of salt” to the potion. Mithridates VI was supposed to have been taking small doses of poison to make him immune to it, with some salt, to help swallow it. Pliny wrote “addito salis grano”. Modern-day readers took it to mean that the story was unreliable and was to be taken with a pinch of salt. They interpreted salis to mean “wit”.

I tend to take such explanations with a pinch of salt (or a grain, if you please!) But, Pliny or no Pliny, taking things with a pinch of salt helps you swallow them – in fact, even makes them tasty!

Incidentally, a pinch of salt is 0.36 grams!