what does take it with a grain of salt mean

So the “grain of salt” that made the antidote palatable also came to undermine the seriousness of the threat.

But most of us take needed medicine with a little sugar rather than salt, right?īut the point was that because there was an antidote to the poison, you could take its threat less seriously. That’s an odd idea, though not impossible. He said you should take the antidote, they say, “with a grain of salt.” Presumably, that would help make the mixture easier to take.

Pliny, also known as Gaius Plinius Secundus, may have used the phrase when translating an antidote for poison. Reader’s Digest tells us that some point all the way back to 77 AD and the Roman author Pliny the Elder. There are a few theories, though no definitive answer, unfortunately. Some of us, though, still like to know how people came to use such a phrase. Yet once we know its meaning, we accept that little combination of words without questioning that. I always find it interesting that we sometimes don’t know how an idiom came into being. The phrase has a British counterpart, which involves taking something with a “pinch of salt.” When we use the phrase, we’re talking about using skepticism or refusing to accept something at face value. That’s what I mean about the phrase having a meaning different from what you might assume. When we mention that “grain of salt,” we’re not talking about seasoning food. “Taking something with a grain of salt” is an example of an idiom.Īn idiom is a phrase that has a unique meaning in our language that might be different from what it looks like it might mean at face value. Have you ever wondered about the expression involving taking something ‘with a grain of salt’? Here’s the story behind the curious phrase.įrom time to time, I’ll take a look at a popular idiom and give you, as best as possible, the explanation behind it.

What does take it with a grain of salt mean