No point rubbing salt into the wound!

How many English idioms do you know that include “salt”?

Salt plays a significant role in many areas of our lives: we need it to survive; we use it to preserve foods; we add it to food to bring out the taste. These are just a few of the more obvious and tangible uses of salt. Once upon a time in many of the major civilizations, salt was considered a commodity, a means of exchange. So salt has left its mark in the English language with a myriad of idioms, many of which are commonly used. How many of them are you familiar with?

• go through someone like a dose of the salts:
  to move through someone’s digestive tract like a strong laxative
• have enough sense to pound salt:
  to have a basic level of competence, intelligence, or common sense
• have hung up and salted:
  to know everything about something
• no person worth his/her salt would do something like that:
  no person who warrants respect in a certain field or profession would engage in such bad behavior or activity
• old salt:
  a sailor, especially a man, who is older and/or has had a lot of experience on the seas
• pour/rub salt in(to) the/(someone’s) wound(s):
  to make something that is already difficult, unpleasant, or painful even worse
• put salt on the tail of (someone or something):
  to try and capture or encapsulate; an allusion to the folk method of capturing birds by sprinkling salt on their tail feathers
• salt (something) away:
  to put something into storage for use at a later date
• salt a/the mine:
  1. to make a mine appear profitable by filling it with ore laden containing the desired material
  2. to plant false information about something to fraudulently increase its value, potency, or desirability
• salt and pepper:
  1. a black and white police car
  2. interracial, including black and white
• salt down:
  to cover something completely in salt in order to preserve it, flavor it, or dry it
• salt horse:
  corned or salted beef
• the salt of the earth:
  a person or group that is regarded as genuine, unpretentious, and morally sound
• salt the books:
  1. to falsify the information in a financial transaction, invoice, or account to make it seem more valuable
  2. to plant false information about something to fraudulently increase its value, potency, or desirability
• salt with:
  1. to put a variety of salt or a salt substitute onto some food
  2. to put something into something as a lure
• sit below/beneath the salt:
  to be in or at a position of low or common standing, rank, regard, or repute; the term is derived from the social hierarchy of nobility in medieval times, in which salt, a precious commodity then, was set in the middle of the dining table and those of high noble rank were seated “above the salt,” that is, closer to the lord and lady of the house, while those in lower social standing were seated “below” or “beneath” it
• take (something) with a grain/pinch of salt:
  to listen to a story or an explanation with considerable doubt
• throw salt on someone’s game:
  to mess up someone’s plans

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