Help you to salt, help you to sorrow

[worder]

meaning, please, thanks.

[FredPuli]

A superstition. Said to someone who asks you to pass the salt to them at table. If you offer to pass the salt to someone else they might reply 'Pass me salt, pass me sorrow'. We stil have the superstition that spilling salt is unlucky. If you spill some at table we may instantly pick up a pinch from the spill and cast it backwards over your (usually left) shoulder 'to throw salt in the Devil's eyes' ! Salt was once very expensive; so spilling it ,and so wasting it, was unlucky.It was originally kept in a tiny dish and served with a spoon, not shaken from a caster; presumably in helping someone to salt you were risking spilling 'their' salt and bringing them bad luck. So you'd best not risk doing it for them!.

[FredPuli]

There's a typo. It should read throw over 'our shoulder' We may, as students,have thrown bread rolls at each other in riotous dinners but salt is never thrown at or over anyone at any age.