Wine is kept in a wine-cellar and salt in a salt-cellar, the latter being an ornamented container from which the grains are scooped with a small spoon. These two cellars, however, are related only by accident, not etymology. About one thousand years ago, French developed the word saliere from the Latin word sal, meaning salt, and applied the word first to hollowed-out lumps of bread that were filled with salt, and later to covered, silver boxes containing the same substance. This French word was adopted into English in the fourteenth century as saler, simply meaning salt box, but within a hundred years the English had lost sight of saler’s salty origin. As a result, the English started to call the container a salt saler\u2014literally a salt salt-box\u2014to emphasize what the vessel was supposed to contain. Eventually the original connection of saler and salt was entirely forgotten, allowing the English to make the mistake of respelling salt saler as salt-cellar, the word cellar being unrelated but similar sounding. Salt-cellars, incidentally, were formerly more than just boxes for keeping salt dry and clean: centuries ago the salt-cellar’s place on a lord’s dining table marked the seating division between his intimate friends and his mere attendants.<\/p>\n
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Wine is kept in a wine-cellar and salt in a salt-cellar, the latter being an ornamented container from which the grains are scooped with a small spoon. These two cellars, however, are related only by accident, not etymology. About one thousand years ago, French developed the word saliere from the Latin word sal, meaning salt, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-s"],"yoast_head":"\n