Learn English – Is ‘Take something cum grano salis’ a popular phrase? Can I use it in casual conversation

phrasesword-usage

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?

Best Answer

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.

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