pinch of salt

[gervais412]

the origin of the term a pinch of salt please

[Zen]

The term salary comes to us from sal, the Latin for salt, along with the story that Roman soldiers were often paid with salt, which at that time was both valuable and tradable. Some scholars doubt that, and suggest the term comes from the money given to Roman soldiers to buy salt.
Whatever, salary definitely comes from the Middle English salarie, from the Latin salarium, from the neuter of salarius, meaning pertaining to salt - but what's the big deal with salt anyway?
Salt is not only essential to life but necessary to the flavour of nearly all our foods. When we describe people as "salt of the earth" these days we usually mean simply that they are nice, but the original meaning was either that they were essential or that they gave life flavour by being interesting.
And when we accept an implausible tale with "a pinch of salt" or in its Latin form *** grano salis, we make it more palatable and more readily "swallowed".