A: Mary said that she spent a huge amount of money on handbags last month and now she's almost broke. B: You have to take everything she says with a pinch of salt, because she tends to exaggerate. Note: This idiom means “to accept something while maintaining a degree of skepticism about its truth.” A pinch of salt (or a grain of salt) is a very small amount of salt, so this idiom starts with the idea that most food tastes better with a little bit of salt. If someone is telling you something that is probably not entirely true, it is easier to swallow it with a pinch of salt than to argue against it. | 