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I came across the phrase, ‘cum grano salis’ in the article written by Chris Cillizza, a political pundit in the August 8th Washington Post’s article under the title ‘GOP smells blood in Presidential race.’ The article deals with the results of latest polls that show significant erosion of the President Obama’s support basis after the downgrading of American credit by S & P’s last Friday.

The phrase in question appears in the following lines:

“Polls are, of course a snapshot in time and are rightly taken cum grano salis. But, it’s not hard to read between the data points on this particular survey.”

As I am totally unfamiliar with the phrase, “take something cum grano salis,” I checked online dictionaries. Both Free Merriam-Webster and Oxford Dictionaries had an entry of 'cum grano salis' as a phrase of Latin origin meaning ‘take something with a grain (pinch) of salt.’

I wonder how popular this phrase is among native speakers. Is it just a liking or style of the author to have used deliberately a ‘big word’ like ‘cum grano salis’ instead of simply saying ‘with a grain of salt’ that can be understood by everybody? If I use “take something cum grano salis ” mimicking the author - like 'You'd better to take Taro's story cum grano salis, in day-to-day conversation among chums, am I taken for granted, or ridiculed?

Yoichi Oishi
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Cum grano salis is the Latin version of the phrase "take it with a grain of salt". This phrase means:

(With) a grain of salt, in modern English, is an idiom which means to view something with skepticism, or to not take it literally.

There is an interesting explanation to it, which says:

Since in Italy "to have salt in your pumpkin" (avere sale in zucca - pumpkin is a humorous way to say "head") means to have intelligence and reasoning capabilities, "grain of salt" often means "a little bit of intelligence". So, "cum grano salis", in its Latin form, it is often used when it is needed to show that intelligence and personal judgment are needed, as in "I drink wine cum grano salis since I must drive" (with care, moderately) or "please, repair this electric cable cum grano salis" (not scanting, thinking to the consequences or dangers of repairing your electric cable).

The phrase "take it with a grain of salt" is a rather common idiom in English. According to this Google NGram, the Latin form was originally more popular but around 1900 the trend switched to favor the English.

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Nowadays, I had never heard the Latin phrase until you posted it. The English version seems to have mostly taken over. I think that using the Latin in conversation would lead people to believe that you were deliberately trying to seem learned, which might come off as disingenuous. The blogger you quoted uses the Latin phrase in a few different articles, but unless you're talking to professors or academics I wouldn't use it in conversation.

  • I agree, although it is a fairly common saying in Italy, I never heard it by an English speaker. – nico Aug 11 '11 at 06:40
  • @nico Interesting--does the Italian phrase about salt meaning intelligence hold any water? –  Aug 11 '11 at 06:41
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    @simchona, wiki article states: 'The Latin word salis means both "salt" and "wit," so that the latin phrase "cum grano salis" could be translated as both "with a grain of salt" and "with a grain (small amount) of wit."' – Unreason Aug 11 '11 at 07:23
  • @unreason--thanks. I just never know when wiki is right on foreign origins, do i –  Aug 11 '11 at 07:27
  • *so I like to get confirmation from others –  Aug 11 '11 at 07:28
  • @simchona: well, I find the reasoning in the wiki explanation a bit odd... As Unreason says, salis also means wit in Latin, so the saying "sale in zucca" uses it in that acception. Cum grano salis also uses salt with the meaning of intelligence, but the two sayings are unrelated as far as I know, aside from the fact of using a common word. – nico Aug 11 '11 at 09:15
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    @Nico I don't think the wiki explanation says that one came from the other -- they share the word "salis", and the other phrase is used to define its connotation. –  Aug 12 '11 at 01:36
  • @simchona: it looked to me like the first sentence of your quote was implying that, but maybe I am just overreading. – nico Aug 12 '11 at 06:09
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"Take it with a grain of salt" is definitely in common usage in normal speech, and everyday life, but if you were to say cum grano salis in a conversation, everyone's head is going to blow towards you, and everyone will be like, "What on earth is that new word?"

Basically, it's not in common usage at all, I wouldn't understand it if someone said it to me, I've never heard it being used. In writing, perhaps it would have been used, but definitely not in conversations and everyday life.

It's like saying mea culpa instead of "My fault", or "My bad.". People would understand "My fault", but not mea culpa. (Or, an alternative, saying "exempli gratia" instead of "for example" or "e.g.". The layman wouldn't understand you.)

Thursagen
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    A Catholic would probably recognize Mea culpa though (isn't it used during mass in English?) – nico Aug 11 '11 at 06:42
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    Mea culpa while not common, is (IME) commonly understood (especially if extended: "mea culpa, mea maxima culpa"). Whereas the phrase in question just seems to be a pretentious way of avoiding directly saying with a grain of salt. – Richard Aug 11 '11 at 08:45
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Orwell's fifth rule of effective writing applies: "Never use a foreign phrase, scientific word or jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent."

Chris Klein
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  • Effective to what purpose though? It's often preferable to use a scientific word because they're so much more precise, and a foreign phrase can provide nuance when the meaning is clear. I'd never heard cum grano salis before, but prefacing it with "take something" made it perfectly clear. – Travis Bemrose Jul 03 '14 at 02:20
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It's interesting that so many people think of Latin as a foreign language; they may be surprised how much of the English language is still Latin!

It is of course unkind to use language to make others aware of their own educational shortcomings. But when someone does, it reveals more about the lack of education of the person who uses the phrase, than those who don't understand it (they can always look it up somewhere). You may be aware that there are many similarities between modern English and modern Italian, I'd like to mention two now; Education and Educazione for example, and you would be forgiven for imagining these to have the same meaning. But you'd be wrong too. We know the English meaning, but the Italian means good manners.

An auntie of mine sometimes used a Latin phrase or two to add colour to a comment and I remember one in particular now. She would say "Idem con patate". it's a funny way of saying both things are the same.

Recently, we seem to be hearing more and more people calling for 'foreign words and phrases' such as Latin ones to be dropped from our language. I think this is a terrible mistake that will only add to a general ignorance of the language used people with a wider vocabulary. Every language has a history, and a future, those two are linked, not separate; you wouldn't cut off your left arm simply because you use your right one more, would you?

Vincenzo De Luca
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    Hi Vincenzo! Welcome to ELU. You might want to add just a line explaining whether you're familiar with the phrase and how familiar you think others would be - otherwise some people might complain that your very interesting and readable post doesn't actually answer the question (although it does, of course, in spirit!) – Araucaria - Him Oct 15 '14 at 10:15