Anyone know where this saying originated?

Question

I use it all the time...i'm sort of dork like that...gotta know trivia stuff. "Take it with a grain of salt" Like if u say something to someone but you're not sure if it's true or not.....or if someone is sort of scetchy u will say "Take what they say with a grain of salt"

NE1 know?

Answer 1

Meaning:
With a healthy dose of skepticism, suspicion, and caution.

Example:
Dave has been known to stretch the truth a bit. Take what he says with a grain of salt.

Origin:
Salt is now an inexpensive and readily available commodity. But it was once very valuable due to its high demand as a food preservative and relative scarcity.
Salt was thought to have healing properties and to be an antidote to poisons. To take (eat or drink) something "with a grain of salt" was to practice preventive medicine. One would do this if they were suspicious that the food might be poisonous or may cause illness.

Answer 2

Grain of salt
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(With) a grain of salt is a literal translation of a Latin phrase, (***) grano salis. A pinch of salt may also be used.

In common parlance, if something is to be taken with a grain of salt, it means that a measure of healthy skepticism should be applied regarding a claim; that it should not be blindly accepted and believed without any doubt or reservation. According to the Oxford English Dictionary "to take 'it' with a grain of salt" means "to accept a thing less than fully". It dates this usage back to 1647.

Speakers may emphasize the degree of skepticism suggested by modifying the expression, such as, "Take that with a BIG grain of salt!" While the basic expression is commonly used to suggest that positive doubt exists, thus modified it can be seen as a direct assertion that a claim is very doubtful, or outright false.

The phrase comes from Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia, regarding the discovery of a recipe for an antidote to a poison. In the antidote, one of the ingredients was a grain of salt. Threats involving the poison were thus to be taken "with a grain of salt" and therefore less seriously. Salt is not known in modern toxicology to be an antidote to any poison[citation needed].

Answer 3

What is the origin of the phrase grain of salt?

We often are told or tell others to "take [something] with a grain of salt" - but do you have any idea where this catchphrase comes from or what it means? Firstly, with a grain of salt means 'with reservations; skeptically'. Though the saying's origin is ultimately unknown, it implies that a pinch of salt can often make food more palatable or easier to swallow. There is also a story that Pliny the Elder wrote about Pompey's seizing of the palace of Mithridates (in Pliny's Historia Naturalis). Pompey found the king's fabled secret antidote against poisons that had protected the king against assassins. This antidote had 72 ingredients and the last line of the formula read "to be taken fasting, plus a grain of salt (Latin *** grano salis)." Pliny's remark supposedly begat the use of this saying, which came to mean 'to accept something with reservations, to avoid swallowing something whole'.

- From http://dictionary.reference.com/help/faq/language/e21.html

Answer 4

It is an idiomatic expression meaning , one should accept something with skepticism.