Take With a Grain of Salt

Welcome to English in a Minute.

Salt is used to add flavor to food.

Each tiny piece of salt is a grain.

Take (something) with a grain of salt.

Did you hear about Mary?

she won the lottery!

oh, did she?

Remember when she said, she appeared on the TV show Apartment of Cards?

You mean that never really happened?

I’d take anything Mary says with a grain of salt.

She likes to make things up.

If you “take something with a grain of salt,” you listen to something with suspicion and doubt.

You do not immediately accept it as true.

Some word expert say this expression comes from a different salt-related phrase written nearly 2,000 years ago by the Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder.

And that’s English in a Minute!