Take it With a Grain of Salt

 

Take it With a Grain of Salt

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Meaning:

Take it With a Grain of Salt means to accept something while maintaining a degree of about its truth. Like when your friend is telling you a crazy story and you are finding it hard to believe, 

“ahh, take it with a grain of salt”

Origin:

The idea with this phrase comes from the fact that food is more easily swallowed if taken with a small amount of salt, so why can’t a crazy story.

There is a very early text about taking a concoction with salt from Pliny’s Naturalis Historia, 77 C.E. translates into modern English it reads:

“After the defeat of that mighty monarch, Mithridates, Gnaeus Pompeius found in his private cabinet a recipe for an antidote in his own handwriting; it was to the following effect: Take two dried walnuts, two figs, and twenty leaves of rue; pound them all together, with the addition of a grain of salt; if a person takes this mixture fasting, he will be proof against all poisons for that day.”

As time went on many scholars studied old Greek text and found Pliny’s book, after that, the phrase “take it with a grain of salt” started to pop up in literature. In the 1600s, the first written record was from John Trapp in 1647 in Commentary on the Old and New Testaments it reads:

"This is to be taken with a grain of salt."

Example:

So, if you think someone is telling lies or stretching the truth, “take it with a grain of salt” means you will let them talk, but this does not mean you have to believe them. An example sentence would be:

"It's important to take any movie rating or review with a grain of salt."

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