Literal Translation
To put in one’s grain of salt
Actual Meaning
To put in one’s two penn’orth (uninvited)
Etymology
A false friend, but possibly with similar origins to ‘take it with a pinch of salt’. One possible explanation would be that salt was such a rare and expensive commodity in the Middle Ages, making even one grain of it worth a lot. A more far-fetched explanation goes back to Pliny the Elder, who may have written “addito salis grano” (“after adding a grain of salt”) and not “cum grano salis” (“with a pinch of salt”), and has to do with a ‘universal’ antidote for poison… Not really linked to adding one’s grain of salt after all! Finally, it could simply be that adding salt makes a dish more flavoursome…