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Dear WW: remember I committed another "YART" (another despicable early board put-down) in mentioning "below the salt" and saying I think it was dirty hands , not just low income that dictated the custom, because the salt was in an open topped box. I haven't been able to learn when salt shakers became common. And I knew salt was abundantly available for preserving fish.
I found a site that said Domesday Book listed a bit over 1100 places in England where salt for sale was obtained from saline wells or deposits located in shallow mines. But table quality salt was harder to get.That being the case, the hosts ought to have had a second inexpensive salt supply for us peasants.
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"Mes" and "Leurs" together are "meilleur", Wordwind, and your French grammar is indeed better than mine. But I couldn't make sense of the phrase without translating it muy libre. (There I go exposing my inadequacies in still another language.) Perhaps wwh will enlighten me on his quote. How does it translate, wwh? As to salt, I am a bit of a selebrity, if only by geographic association. I was born in Windsor, Ontario (across from Detroit), the home of "Windsor Salt". No kidding. We Windsorites are not only famous for our cars. You may have some Windsor Salt in your kitchen, Wordwind, but I suspect Dr. Bill is salt-free. In any case, it is clear I have come down in the world quite drastically. I was born on top of the salt in Windsor and now I find myself sitting below the salt.  About YART. I have my cryptologists working on that one and the best they have come up with so far is "Yale Alumni Rarely Tell" ... which doesn't ring true, somehow. So what does YART mean? BTW are you sure about the origins of the phrase "below the salt"? I think the inflection is more low caste than "low income". In medieval times, anyone sitting "below the salt" was of lesser rank. The salt line marked the blood line, so to speak. Costain wrote about this in one of his historical novels as I recall. And I must leave you with one more salt tidbit. They are coming out with a variety of celery which contains its own salt. Its called "selery". How's that for convenience! Now you can have your salt without sprinkling your potatoes. And its all natural too. Its grown in Windsor. (I hope that doesn't make me a laughing stalk or I'm going to end up in the stalkade ... again.  )
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I guess I deserved that, Musick. 20 points 4 that YART. Those who live by the YART will die by the YART. At the risk of pouring salt in my own wounds, may I say that that is as it should be. A word, like a sword, drawn in anger, should not be drawn at all unless one is prepared to draw blood. And then it should be drawn only for something worth dying for ... figuratively speaking, of course.
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wwh: I found some great stuff on salt on a link below! There are photographs of salt crystals, some pink halite and one a colorless halite that has a blue cast. They are very beautiful, in some cases. What was most interesting was the refining process, in which the mined salt is completely doused with water. When it dries, it forms something called a hopper. The link below will take you directly to a sketch of the hopper: http://www.minerals.net/glossary/terms/h/hopper.htmand this link will take you to a page that is loaded with information about salt: http://www.minerals.net/mineral/halides/halite/halite.htmThat's the page where you can click on the photographs of the salt crystals. I do want to read about the salt mines in Ireland... Best regards, Rocky
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Now what did I do? Anyone who believes a YART is other than a blunt object wielded to prod the slow moving (and simultaneously amuse... or at least try) has a distinctly different approach to language than I... but then most people do.  I have noticed, in recent months, a propensity for self yarting more than any other kind... but, then again, I haven't been around the board enough lately to post those time saving links for the collective to assimilate... Oh, and just in case this comes up again (like in about 20 posts or so)... at work I have 8-10 times the average dial-up connection speed... so I generally won't spend the frustrating moments that the WorldWideWait has ensnarled most of the people here into... my empathy is reeling.
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Oh, and just in case this comes up again (like in about 20 posts or so)... at work I have 8-10 times the average dial-up connection speed...Then we can be assured of swift justice, musick, and may I say, I welcome it. I'm getting tired of throwing all the YARTs around here.
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Dear WW: Thanks for the links. One important peculiarity of salt is that its solubility does not increase very much with heat, so that where it can be mined, that is more economical.
I was really baffled a year ago by story Mitsubishi wanted to put an enormous salt production plant on shores of Gulf of California. But there was reason to believe it would endanger whale breeding there, and it was cancelled.
Incidentally, "halite" name derives from Halle, Austria where it was mined thousands of years ago.
Dear Plutarch: your "selery" could be worth millions in phytoremediation in many areas of world that desperately need desalinization.
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Dear Plutarch: your "selery" could be worth millions in phytoremediation in many areas of the world that desperately need desalinization.
Indeed, wwh, that would be a bit like turning salt into gold. Isn't it true that at one time salt was so rare that it was used as currency. This would give new meaning to my coinage. But, one drawback, wwh, who would want to eat their Selery? They would certainly want to stalk up on it. I envision vast stalkpiles of Selery, wwh. Selery, Selery everywhere, and not a stalk to eat.
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this link will take you to a page that is loaded with information about salt
Dear Wordwind: It is not really for me to 'tut tut' you about this, because I am a selebrity in name only. In matters of select taste, I refer to His Exselency, our own wwh (who deserves to be selebrated more often). In any case, one never invites someone to go to a link which is "loaded with information about salt". In salt circles, the unsalinated are sent to a link which is "salted with information". And those who don't have the good sense to go are sent to the salt mines.
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