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well, there are plenty of idioms and superstitions..
like "salt of the earth" to define a good person (some one valuable to have around?)
or "take things with a pinch of salt" (just as salt improves flavor, you should improve your outlook?)
(or are there better defination/ different understanding of the idioms?)
or that spilling salt is bad luck, and if you do spill it, you have to gather up a pinch of it, and throw it over your left shoulder to rid your self of the bad luck.
any others?
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Carpal Tunnel
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worth his salt (from salary paid to roman soldiers, in salt; hence "salary"?)
Plus sitting under the salt, discussed above.
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Carpal Tunnel
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a salty expression, salty language (synecdoche)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear maverick: I wish you had taken a shot at the etymology of "salty" expressions. An obvious possibility is associating "salty" with sailors, who have a longstanding reputation for ribaldry.
P.S. There a great many fascinating URLs about desalinization of water, so many I leave it to you to find them. If you can't, PM me.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Bill, you still haven't explained the salt rising bread.
I thought I had you when I remembered a cookbook dating from 1891 in my library (the type that starts explaining how you make turtle soup by the words "catch a medium sized turtle, make sure you hang it by the hind feet before cutting off head so it will drain properly...)
Well there were a few recipes to make yeast involving salt (and potatoes) but no salt rising bread. Curioser and curioser.
Saltbox A saltbox is nearly chest-high in the back and mid-thigh in the front and it looks like the house Bill showed us. In rural areas you can find this on some street corners with a shovel inside so people can spread salt if they see the need. You rarely see them in urban areas anymore as all the salt spreading is very well timed.
I have never heard the name salt cellar. A celler is generally an underground storage area for food or wine. It may be under the house or only partly so. Often it will be called a 'cold room'.
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"Take it with a grain of salt"
Jackie, my understanding of the phrase was that what you were hearing might not necessarily be the whole truth, and you might have to "season" it with additional facts, i.e., view it with some degree of skepticism. Anyone else?
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lacking in veracity.
Max, what a charmingly indirect version of the earthier Anglo Saxon b___it.
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it was of troy who offered this oneOops  ! Right you are, Max. My apologies to of troy and Jackie for not paying proper attention  .
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the earthier Anglo Saxon b___itHence the salty expression "Once b__itten, twice shi__"? 
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