Salt

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Hello and welcome to another Daily Dose of English. Today's Daily Dose of English is about...

Salt

Salt is important. Without salt you can die. The importance of salt can be seen in the number of idioms which use the word salt in English.

The first idiom I'm going to look at is to take something with a pinch of salt. When we take something with a pinch of salt we doubt the truth of something somebody is telling us.

For example: You shouldn't believe everything she tells you. She's a liar and you should take everything she says with a pinch of salt.

He said he's going to pay you back the money? I'd take that with a pinch of salt if I was you.

Another idiom is to be worth your salt. This means that something or someone is worth the cost of keeping.

For example: My accountant costs a lot but she's worth her salt as she saves me a lot of money every year.

You're not worth your salt! You're fired!

If you've just been fired and you go home to tell your partner and they tell you that they're leaving you, that's rubbing salt in the wound.

When we rub salt in the wound we make a difficult situation even more difficult for someone.

For example: I had an accident yesterday and my car was written off. To make matters worse the police have really rubbed salt in the wound by charging me with dangerous driving.

Of course if you're the salt of the earth you're not likely to get fired or even have an accident. People we describe as the salt of the earth are the best type of people.

For example: My grandmother was the salt of the earth, always willing to help anyone with anything.

A good way of preserving food is to pack it in salt. We have salt pork, salt beef, and salt fish. Here in Spain salted cod is very popular. So when we pack something in salt we are preserving it for a later date. The idiom to salt something away comes from this way of preserving food.

We can salt away some money for the future.

For example: Did you spend all that money you won on the lottery, or did you salt away a little for the future?

You can also salt something like a mine to deceive someone into thinking it's more valuable than it really is. In the days of the American Gold Rush unscrupulous mine owners would salt a little gold dust in the mine or along the banks of the river in order to get a better price from an unsuspecting buyer.

Anyway it's back to the salt mines from me. The salt mines were an unpleasant place to work in the ancient past, and slaves were often condemned to work there under appalling conditions.

These days we can say that we're going back to the salt mines if we have to return to work, especially work that we don't particularly enjoy.

For example: Come on, it's seven o'clock and you got to get up and get back to the salt mines.

Interestingly, the word salary comes from salt, and it's believed that Roman soldiers were sometimes paid in salt because of its high value in ancient times.

Mahatma Gandhi used salt as a way of defying The British in India. Salt therefore played a great part in India achieving its independence.

I hope you enjoyed that Daily Dose of English and I'll see you again soon for another one.

Goodbye for now.

You might also like to visit http://irregularenglishverbs.com for irregular English verbs, and http://speakbritishenglish.com for some great readings of British English literature, history and culture.

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[rutsableich]

@urbanruler Thank you for your reply, now I know :)

[mitsubishi777]

I'm not very keen on salty food.

[urbanruler]

It is spoken in Pakistan 

[Linguaspectrum]

@MrArchy108 You can find them at the website. Follow the link under the video.

[MrArchy108]

where is the subtitles ?

[rutsableich]

@urbanruler Where is Urdu language from?

[urbanruler]

@FM43ful Excetly ... : )

[FM43ful]

@urbanruler zakhmo par namak chirakna right?

[urbanruler]

To rub the salt on wound is the used exceltly in Urdu language