A SALT COMMENTARY by Lois Liggett

This commentary is an excerpt from “The Rooted Tongue: Spiritual Linguistics”, an 1800 page, unpublished word commentary. The commentary is mainly based on Webster’s New World Dictionary, the American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots or bases (IE), customs, and historical and scientific insights.

There is more to salt than a flavoring or preservative for food. Salt is used in many contexts, including sacred texts. Biblical passages can find greater relevance with the examination of salt etymology and definitions, and usage in various cultures. Savor this salty commentary as it enhances your dining pleasure and research the topic of salt through two books: “Salt, a World History”, by Mark Kurlansky, and “The Salt Book”, by David Glynn and Fritz Gubler.

A word about the Indo-European (IE) root meanings and the root meanings of salt, where sal is an important ingredient. IE languages is a family of languages that includes most of those spoken in Europe and many of those spoken in southwestern Asia and India, the roots of which have been reconstructed by linguists. There are two sets of meanings of IE base sal. The first set of meanings are: Gmc saltam; OE sealt; OHG sulz and sulza meaning salt marsh and yielding souse; Dan and Nor sylt meaning salt marsh; ME cylte meaning fine sand or silt; L saltere meaning to salt and yielding sauce; L sal or salis meaning salt and yielding sal, salad, salami, salary, saline, saltcellar, salt peter, and Grk hals meaning salt and sea yielding halo-. The second set of sal meanings are dirty and gray with forms of Gmc salwaz and OE salu and salo meaning dusky, dark, and yielding sallow. These sets demonstrate a relationship. Sallow also implies deathly pale or white as a sheet and also shriveled or sunken, as salt is used as a drying and preserving agent. There are many types of salt coming in various colors and tastes. This commentary further explores these meanings. Other IE roots can be linked to sal, such as sel, se, and sol.

Salt derivations are: OE sealt; Ger salz; L sal; Grk hāls yielding halo-; Sansk salila meaning salty; and IE base sal, which also yields marsh, silt, sauce, salad, saline, dusky, dark, sallow, and salary.Salt is defined as: sodium choride, NaCl, a white crystalline substance with a taste found in natural beds and sea waters, and used for seasoning and preserving foods; a chemical compound derived from an acid that replaces hydrogen, whole or in part, with a metal or an electropositive radical: the salt of an –ous acid is usually indicated by the suffix –ite, the salt of an –ic acid by the suffix –ate; that which lends a tang or piquancy; sharp pungent humor or wit; saltcellar; any of various mineral salts used as a cathartic, as Epsom salts, or to soften bath water, as a restorative; a sailor, especially an experienced one; to sprinkle or season with salt; and to give artificial value to. At one time guests around a table were placed according to where the salt bowl was placed. The salt bowl was placed in the middle. Above the salt was the more honored position and below the salt was the less favored placement. Common table salt is sodium chloride in white granular form. The colloquial phrase, “salt away” refers to storing valuables or saving money. 

Salt usage has a history of many thousands of years. Salt was like gold in the economic and political health of nations throughout the world until just a few decades ago. Towns were named after salt deposits in or near the town. An example is Salzburg, Austria. Salt could be taxed and used for wages. Recall Gandhi’s march to the sea was centered on unfair salt practices of the Indian government at the time and instrumental in turning the tide toward India’s independence from British rule. Salt is used as a preservative thus lending the curative or saving aspect to it’s meaning.  One salt phrase is, “to take or accept something with a grain of salt” refers to allowing something to happen without reserve or skepticism. The phrase “worth one’s salt” means one’s wages or sustenance. This is where salary, as well as soldier comes from. An important part of spas and resorts can be mineral baths intended to restore health to the bathers. Mineral is derived from mine.

Scot salt definitions are: a saltcellar; the sea; a cost or penalty; sarcasm; expensive; to pickle; to snub; to have revenge upon; to check; and to heighten in price. Scot salty is defined as: of, tasting of, or containing salt; smelling of or suggesting the sea; sharp; piquant; witty; coarse or earthy; and cross or caustic.  Scot salter is defined as: one who salts fish, and a shrewd, sharp-tongued person.

Halo- derived from Grk hals or halos meaning salt is a combining form having to do with salt, the sea, or halogen. Halo is the splendor or glory with which a famed or idealized person is invested, or the whitish luminous ring of light that encircles a body. Halo is derived from Grk halos meaning circular threshing floor, or round disk of the sun or moon, Grk halein meaning to grind, Hindi ātā meaning meal, and Armenian alam meaning grind. A halo effect is defined as the tendency for an estimate or judgment to be influenced by an irrelevant or only loosely associated factor or impression.

            What is there about salt that brings value to it in the eyes of mankind, or in other scenarios where it is used to mean devaluation? Genesis 19:26 says, “But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.”  This passage is in the context of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the instructions given to Lot and his family were to flee and not look back, but Lot’s wife did look back. The presumed interpretation is that his wife was longing for her past life, which could not be preserved. The server, Lot’s wife, is the one who acted to preserve, keep in order, and protect or guard Lot, the master and his household. A server can simply be a person devoted to another or to a cause or creed. The wife was bound to the master’s land and can be considered oppressed or without freedom.

The word definitions of sol and IE base sol are also be related to salt. Sol can refer to the sun, a monetary unit of Peru, a Roman sun god, a note of music, and a colloidal dispersion in a liquid (which could contain salt).  IE base sol yields: entire, unbroken, religious, solemn, salute, health, a whole or sound condition, uninjured, safe, and save. In the middle ages, a salver was a person who tested a dish for poison by sampling the food first, before the guests. Poisoned food may have been spiced or “salted up” to cover up the poison taste. By saluting a person(s), the intention was to wish good health. It was salutary to salute the salver whose death might have saved the diners.

In antiquity and right up to present times salt was and is very important in preservation of foodstuffs. In Hebraic Law salt was presented with many kinds of offerings. Leviticus 2:13 states, “Season all your grain offerings with salt. Do not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offerings: add salt to all your offerings.” A covenant implies an agreement that is to be preserved forever, therefore salt becomes the symbolic marker of the eternal. Numbers 18:19 states, “Whatever is set aside from the holy offerings the Israelites present to the Lord I give to you and your sons and daughters as your regular share. It is an everlasting covenant of salt before the Lord for both you and your offspring.” In Matthew 5:13 of the Biblical New Testament “salt of the earth” refers to any person regarded as the finest or noblest.  Salt used symbolically in covenants represented permanence and stability. Mark 9:50 states, “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again?  Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other.” 

Seasoning derives from season and is further derived from: ME sesoun; OFr seson; VL satio meaning season for sowing with L satio meaning a sowing or planting; L serere meaning to sow; L semen meaning seed; and IE base se, which has several sets of related meanings. These meanings are: to cast and let fall; to sow; seed; season; insert; seminary; long; later; side; to sift; to bind; to tie; and sinew.    Definitions include: a plant embryo; a bulb or tuber; the source, origin, or beginning of anything; descendants; spore; sperm; a tiny crystal; to sow; to stimulate growth; and the phrase “go to seed” implies useless, to become weak, and to deteriorate.  Season can be separated into sea plus son, which can be reinterpreted as salt water plus warmth from the sun providing necessary ingredients for sustaining life. Or season can mean the amount of heat provided by the sun at different times and places to produce theseasons. Keep in mind that without water there is no ability to taste, or to discern life issues and find solutions. 

Land that is rich in salt cannot be used for agriculture or pasture land.  SALT, when exposed to the elements of weather such as rain, heat of the sun, or dank moisture tends to lose its taste and become useless. Salt lick or salt pan is an exposed natural deposit of mineral rock salt, which animals come to lick, or a block of rock salt placed in a pasture for cattle to lick. A cow lick is an unruly tuft of hair, but is there more to this in the context of salt? A person with “unruly hair” may not be attentive to customary or societal norms and maybe considered an “out caste”.  Cast is explored below.

Physiologically salts are required for life to exist. There are several salty words to explore in this biological context. Salt peter is potassium nitrate with peter deriving from L petra meaning rock. In Christianity Peter is the “rock of the Church”. This raises a question regarding a possible connection between Peter and sal?  Saltation means: a leaping, jumping, or dancing; sudden change, movement, or development; and in biology a mutation. Saline refers to: a salt spring, lick, or mine; salt of magnesium or of an alkali metal, often used as a cathartic; and a saline solution, one that is isotonic, used in medical treatment or biological experiments. Saltatory means: of, characterized by, or adapted for leaping or dancing; and proceeding by abrupt movements or changing by sudden variation. This word is used in the biological realm as saltatory conduction, which is the process where an electrical impulse flows through extracellular fluids and through the axoplasm from node to node, thus exciting successive nodes as the excitation wave travels. In this way the electrical impulse jumps down the nerve fiber. This type of conduction, causing a depolarization, jumps long intervals along the axis of the nerve, increasing the velocity of the transmission in myelinated fibers. These intervals occur at the nodes where the axons are not insulated and coated by a myelin sheath (not all nerves have a myelin sheath). The fluids contain salts, which are ingredients of the excitation.

Mutation derived from L mutare meaning to change and IE base meit(h) or mei meaning to change or exchange yielding miss. Definitions are: a changing or being changed; a change, as in form, nature, or qualities; in biology a sudden variation in some inheritable characteristic in a germ cell of an individual animal or plant, as distinguished from a variation resulting from generations or gradual change; an individual resulting from such variation; mutant; an abrupt and relatively permanent change in somatic cells that is transmitted only to daughter cells and can be inherited only in plants that reproduce asexually; and an umlaut, or an alternation of consonants under specific conditions, as in variations in the initial consonant of a word in Irish and other Celtic languages. 

The IE base mei has several groups of meanings. The first mei generally means to change, go, or move with derivatives meaning exchange of goods and services within a society as regulated by custom and law. This root yields: permeate, mad, commute, transmute, mutual, mistake, miss, mean, common, communicate, municiple, immune, and migrate. The second mei, generally meaning small, yields: diminish, minor, minister, mystery, and master. The third mei generally means to fix or to build fences or fortifications and yields: OE mære meaning boundary, border, or landmark; mural; munition; L mēta meaning boundary stone, limit, post, or stake; and ON meithr meaning a tree. The fourth mei means to tie and yields: miter from OPer Mithra or name of a god, in relationship to other through covenant; bond; and Grk mitos meaning a warp thread, thus mitosis and mitochondrion. Another IE root, MĒI meaning mild, yields mitigate with a sense of softening an action to make less severe and less rigorous, and mir meaning joy and peace. 

What kind of containers is salt stored in? Salt cellar is derived from ME salt saler and MFr saltcellar and is defined as a small dish for salt at the table. Salt shaker is akin to salt cellar. The salt shaker is vigorously moved up and down to sprinkle  salt.  Cellar is derived from L cellarium meaning a pantry or storeroom and cella meaning cell. The definitions are a room or group of rooms below the ground level; a stock of wines kept in the cellar below, and the lowest position among competing teams. Keep in mind cellar is located at the bottom and this meaning may possibly have a bearing on salt used to mean a base or foundation as a covenant, or to store  in the cool cellar until food is cured or seasoned so the food does not spoil.

Caster refers to: a person or thing that casts; a small bottle or other container for serving vinegar, mustard, or salt at the table; a stand for holding several such containers; a small wheel or freely rolling ball set in a swiveled frame and attached to each leg or bottom corner of furniture so it can be easily moved. What do these definitions have to do with cast? CAST can mean to fall, throw, put, and deposit and is related to caste with L castus meaning pure, chaste, cut off, and separated. Castigate is an act of punishment or reprimand. Keep in mind Lot’s wife turning into a pillar of salt.  India’s population is separated into a caste system.

Crock refers to: a large earthen ware jar for holding butter, sugar, or salt; a fragment of earthenware; an old ewe too old for breeding; to kill; to croak; and to rumble as sound from the bowels. 

Sudden movement, as in leaping, can be seen as part of ceremonial rituals, especially in situations where passages or transformative experiences of life are emphasized. Saltant means leaping and dancing and is linked to salient.  Derivations are: L saltans, saltare, and salire, meaning leaping or dancng; Grk halma meaning to jump; and IE base sel meaning to jump. IE base sel also yields meanings of: human settlement from Gmc sal and It sala yielding hall, room, and salon; L solum yielding bottom, foundation, and sole; of good mood and to favor from Gmc sēl meaning happy or completely and silly; L sōlārī meaning to comfort or console; Grk hilaros meaning exhilarate; to take or grasp from Gmc saljan meaning to give up or sell and from OE sellan meaning to betray or sell; to jump with L salīre also yielding assail, exult, insult, and result; Grk hallesthai yielding halter; and L salmo meaning salmon. Salt sellers performed an important function to the welfare of cultures that depended on salt.  These meanings might be helpful to understand Biblical passages noted previously. 

Saute has the same etymology as saltant. Bits of food may jump around in the hot pan during the process of sautéing.  Salad and salami are also derived from salt etymologies. Brine meaning full of salt, is derived from L friare meaning to crumble and IE base bher meaning to cut sharply. Pickling in brine is also called souse. Souse is derived from OFr souz, and OHG sulza meaning brine and salz meaning salt.  OHG sulza sounds like salsa.  Pickle can also mean to be in a difficult situation or predicament. Smelling salts is also called sal volatile meaning volatile salt used in a predicament like fainting in order to allow the faint-hearted person to get up and dance again.

The idea of dancing and leaping is certainly salient to the context of this commentary. Salient is derived from: L saliens and salire meaning to leap; Grk halma meaning a leap or spring; and IE base sel meaning to jump. Definitions are: leaping; jumping, or capering; gushing or jetting forth; pointing outward; jutting or projecting, as an angle; standing out from the rest; noticeable; conspicuous; prominent; the part of a battle line, trench, or fort which projects farthest toward the enemy; and a salient angle or part. Salientian with the same roots as salient refers to anuran, a type of tailless jumping amphibian as frogs and toads. The Grk word halma, meaning leap or spring, can be separated into hal and ma. Hal can refer to salt, breathe, whole, and health. The IE base ma, meaning good, mother, and damp, yields timely, seasonable, mature and matutinal (in the morning), moor, and emanate. Salient, in the context of halma, can mean the emanation that flows forth in a timely fashion from the whole of life.

Leaping and dancing is in most instances accompanied by music. Worship of deities, including God, are linked to the sun and thus sol. Can Psalm and Psalter, the Book of Psalms, be linked to salt? Psalter is derived from: ME sauter; OE saltere; OFr sautier; L psalterium meaning stringed instrument (see below); Grk psaltērion meaning harp; and Grk psallein meaning to twitch or pluck. A psalterium has the appearance of having many folds and is also called an omasum refering to the third division in the stomach of a cud chewing animal, or ruminant, as the cow. 

Further derivations of psalter are Grk psallein meaning to cause to vibrate, to shake, Grk pselaphan meaning to stroke, fumble, or grope, Grk haphao meaning to touch, stir, excite, and Sansk asphatayati meaning he shakes, flaps, and strikes. If feeling as a human attribute, is related to salt the link could be in the phrase “mankind is the salt of the earth, the finest and the noblest. ”  Feel definitions can include to examine or test by touching or tasting and to be moved toward something. Finally a psalter is related to a zither or type of harp plucked or twitched with the fingers of both hands, but a salter shakes salt onto something. The singing of the Psalms has included the accompaniment of the harp, which can move people with feelings of tenderness, and to tears. Tears are salty.    

Cure is another word for preserve. Salt is used to cure certain foods. Derivations of cure are: OFr and L cura meaning care, concern, trouble; L coira; and IE base kois meaning to be concerned.  Definitions are: to heal; restore to sound health condition; a medicine or treatment to return to a state of health; spiritual charge of persons in a specific locality; care of souls; the position of a curate or the curacy; a process for preserving meat, fish, and tobacco by salting, smoking, drying or aging; the process of hardening material like concrete or mortar by controlling humidity and temperature. A curate is one to whom is entrusted the spiritual care of people within the domain of the curate. In France a parish priest may be called a curé.  Something that has the power to heal is curative. Epsom salts or magnesium sulfate is a white, crystalline salt used as a cathartic and in bath water as a pain reliever. In a ritualistic sense, salt can be sprinkled in such a way as to enhance healing. What or who is taken as worth a “grain of salt”?

Curiosity is derived from the same roots as cure. Curiosity means: the quality of wonder about a thing or a happening; a desire to learn or know; to be inquisitive; and the quality of being careful. Curious is derived from: ME and OFr curios; L curiosus meaning careful, diligent, and curious; L cura meaning care.   Curious is defined as: eager to learn or know; inquisitive; prying; arousing attention because of strange, novel, or rare qualities; fastidious; and highly detailed or elaborate workmanship. An object about which one becomes curious may be a curio. Procure originally meant to obtain with care or to secure. Secure is derived from L se meaning apart and curare or cura. Secure is defined as: free from care, doubt, worry, and anxiety; safe; reliable; dependable; to make firm; capture; to hold fast; and to cause. Security means the state of being or feeling secure as defined above, plus something that assures this condition. A curator is linked to security. Curator is derived from ME curatour; and L curator and curare meaning to take care of from L cura meaning to guard, attend to. A curator is someone in charge of a museum or library, or a guardian that cares for minors or persons not capable of sound decision-making, or is entrusted with highly prized or valued objects. Proxy and proctor are related through an old word, procuracy, which means managing or acting for another.  The topic of “food security” has to do with salt, especially as a symbol of nature, used as a preservative in the context of a high quality of life or in preservation of diversity and purity of food stuffs. 

Japanese tsuru has the following definitions: a string; bowstring; a chord; the handle; the bail; vine; a runner; a winder; a liana or liane; bows; a connection; a crane or a stork (synonyms are sparrow, falcon, and hawk); wait expectantly; change; love; salt; the voice of authority; ex cathedra, meaning spoken from the throne; suspend; hang; wear (girdle on) a sword; make a shelf; fish; angle; catch; hook; land; allure; entice; attract; take in; raise; lift; hold; scar; slant upward; honest; simple; sincere; kind hearted; incorrupt; immaculate; clean; and pure. Incorrupt can be defined as pure, not rotten, therefore well-preserved.

SALICIN, SALAMANDER, and TONGUE can be explored to shed more light on salt. Salamander is a mythological reptile or spirit said to live in fire, or an amphibian with limbs and tail. Salicin is derived from: Fr salicine; L salix or salicis meaning willow and akin to saliva; OE sol meaning dark and dirty; OE sealh meaning willow; and IE base sal. Willows trees bend with the wind. The branches are flexible.  Salicin is a white crystal substance obtained from the bark of poplars and willows and used as a reagent and is the ingredient in aspirin. A reagent is a substance used to detect or measure another substance or to convert one substance into another. Aspirin is derived from spire meaning to turn, coil, or wrap up, like the tongues of fire that transform matter from one substance to another. Tongues of fire can symbolically mean strong speech. Assume people naturally aspire to higher levels of consciousness. In relation to salamanders as “tongues of fire”, it is said that flames bend with the wind and lick at material about to be consumed. A possible literal meaning of salamander is salt manipulator, that is, a person of the earth who within the mandate to work, manages people, animals, plants, and minerals with fire, implying an energetic spirit.  

When substances burn the ashes are often gray in color. Gray smoke from fire tends to rise in coils. The spinnaker, a large triangular headsail with a linguistic link to Sphinx, also rises from coils of rope. A derivation of Sphinx is IE spheig meaning to bind, to squeeze, and to throttle. The ancient Egyptian Sphinx at one time was probably surrounded by a moat of water. The pyramid majestically rise behind the Sphinx. Pyramid can be interpreted as “fire in the middle” if pyr (pyre) is taken as the pyra in pyramid. Then the embalming ritual and transformative journey of the pharaoh can be understood in the context of salt as a fixative, as a preservative, and as of an eternal truth. A pyramid has triangular surfaces that “catch the spirit” as wind catches a sail and moves a vessel forward.

The “tongue” can refer to a specific language or a “mother” tongue. The function of a tongue is discernment of taste, a purpose of the taste buds that distinguish among the qualities of sweet, sour, salty and bitter flavors of food, and production of certain sounds. Bud is linked to Buddha. The behavior, action, or verbal expressions people use through speech or in writing can be said to, “leave a particular taste or flavor in the mouth”. Tibetan tong, meaning experience, may be related to the function of the tongue in discerning food qualities and by extending the meaning, to experiences in “tasting” events of life. Tongs are usually thought of as a tool for grasping items like food, however tongs can metaphorically hold the idea of “grasping life experiences”.

Yet another avenue of approach to understanding salt is a link to the neck, part of the spinal column or pillar allowing the head to turn, and collar. Hals can also mean neck.  Collar is derived from: ME coler; OFr colier; L collare meaning band or chain for the neck; L collum meaning neck; Ger hals meaning neck, salt, and sea; and IE base kwel to turn and linked to wheel. There is a relationship among holy, salt, and neck through the linkage with holy derivations of OE halig and hal meaning sound, happy, and whole. Holy can be defined as a person who is sound, happy, and whole. The neck of all vertebrates has seven vertebrae, a sacred or holy number symbolic of perfect order. The neck is an area that symbolically equates with a person’s behavior. Some phrases in this context are “break neck speed” implying risky behavior, and “stiff necked” implying inflexibility. 

Grk hals also means sea. Grk ester can mean an alkyl salt. Ester is associated with ether meaning an invisible substance regarded by the ancients as filling all space beyond the sphere of the moon, and making up the stars and planets.  The IE base of ether is aidh meaning to burn, fire, house, air, and heat. Ester is linked to the name Biblical Esther meaning star. Keep in mind the Biblical contexts of salt.

Tears are salty and emitted because of great joy, sorrow or grief, or a foreign object in the eye. The verb tear has definitions of: to force apart or divide into factions; rent; to make or cause by tearing, puncturing, lacerating, agitate, and torment. When there is grief the world may seem gray, not bright. 

What is natural to mankind and other creatures is salt.  Natron or niter, a salt, was used to preserve bodies in ancient Egypt. In Grk it is called nitron or native (natural) soda. In Heb it was netr and in Ancient Egyptian it is transliterated as ntr and is akin to universal principles as Neters. Recall salt is used to cure meat. A nurse cures an ill person by providing proper nutrients and an IV of saline for rehydration. Saline refers to that which contains sodium chloride or any salt that is alkaline. Saline can be interpreted as a salt line and possibly be linked to definitions of line as one’s lot (Lot) in life, fate, and lineage. 

Lineage implies a line. How can alkaline be interpreted in the context of lineage and ancestral lines. (Perhaps in terms of Al Kaline, the baseball player). Alakaline can be separated into al and ka, plus line.  Al can be linked with many meanings of: admiral, a motion towards, addition to, at, beyond, ultimate, adulterate, allegory, to wander, exile, to grow, to nourish, exalt, enhance, offspring, prolific, to grind, mill, and all. Ka can refer to humankind’s personality of the soul dwelling within the body. This is the Ancient Egyptian definition. Alkali can be derived from Ar alqili meaning ashes from saltwort and qalai meaning to roast in a pan. Definitions are any base or hydroxide, as soda, ash, or potash that is soluble in water, and any soluble substance such as a mineral salt or mixture of salts that can neutralize acids and considered caustic. An alternate interpretation suggests a line of ancestry consisting of noble people as “salt of the earth”.

Nature derivations are: L natura and natus meaning to be born or produced; IE base gen meaning to beget or produce with extended root form gnā-sko, yielding L gnāscī and nāscī, which gives nature, naïve, natal, nation, native, nativity, Noel, cognate, and neonate. Nature can be defined in the following ways: essence of something; the vital functions, forces, and activities of an organism; type of groupings; the instincts, desires, appetites, and drives of a person or animal; normal or acceptable behavior; the entire universe in space and time; the power, forces, and principles that govern function; the primitive state of man; a simple way of life close to or in the outdoors; scenery including plants and animals untouched by man; not artificial; affectionate or kindly feeling; the condition of man as unredeemed by grace; an inherent characteristic; naked; wild; uncivilized; the real world as different from an imaginary, spiritual, or intellectual world. More words akin to NATURE are: Grk acheirotos meaning untamed; Grk adamastos meaning unconquered or untamed; OE dom meaning a condition or state; Grk emphytos meaning inborn, implanted, or natural; L habitas meaning condition or state; L material meaning matter; and Grk physis meaning condition or nature. Scot definitions of NATURE are: spontaneously producing rich herbage; rich; and nourishing. 

What is natural belongs to nature? Who decides what is “natural”?  There are some further definitions of natural in WNWD included here: innately felt to be right based on instinctive moral feeling; true; without a legal relationship as in being an illegitimate child or a child by adoption; off white or light beige; a condition resulting from age or disease, rather than from an accident; in mathematics relating to a member of a set of positive whole numbers sometimes including zero; in music a key with no sharps or flats, or a white key on the piano; and a person below normal intelligence; and a fool.  Scot natural definitions are: due to birth alone; affable; genial; one’s nature or constitution; and idiot, imbecile, or half-witted person. A synonym for natural is normal.  After looking at these definitions it may be difficult to tell what is normal!

Native is derived from: ME natyf; MFr natif; L natives and natus meaning born; plus the derivations of nature. Definitions are: inborn or innate, not acquired; belonging to a locality or country by birth, production, or growth; indigenous; related to one as, or in connection with, the place of one’s birth or origin; simple; natural; free from affectation; as found in nature; natural, not refined, adorned, or altered by man; occurring in a pure state; characteristic of indigenous inhabitants; a permanent resident; and a person born under a certain astrological sign.

Sail, assail, and assault are part of this commentary. Assault is akin to assail. The derivations are: ME assut; OFr assaut and assalt; VL assaltus and assaire; and IE sel. Definitions are: a violent attack, either physical or verbal; a euphemism for rape; an unlawful threat or unsuccessful attempt to do physical harm to another, causing a present fear or immediate harm; a sudden attack on a fortified place; and the close-combat phase of an attack. Keep in mind attack implies sharpness. Food with a salty taste can be sharp. A weapon used in an attack or an assault can be a stick or rod of some type. Rape is a forceful sexual mating. A sailor can be called a mate. A spar, as mast, yard, gaff, or boom, can support a sail.  Spar can also mean a type of fight. The “as” of assault is the prefix ad or ac meaning motion toward and is used in admiral, advance, and accursed. The sault of assault is closely linked to salient. 

Sailor, derived from ME sailer and Fr matelot, meaning a mariner, a mate, a boatman, a seaman, and a person who makes a living by sailing. An experienced sailor is referred to as a “salt”, “old salt”, or a “salty dog”. An “old salt” is a seasoned sailor. Consider the role and the life of a sailor. The salty sea spray from the wind dries on the skin. The sailor attacks the wind by tacking with sails.  One sail mentioned previously is spinnaker. In the mid 1700’s to the early 1800’s “salt” colloquially had the meaning of amorous or lecherous. L salire, also meaning to gush forth, has been used to mean an animal covering the female in a lustful way.

Sail is derived from: ME seil; OE segl; Ger segel; OFris seil; Du zeil; OHG segal; L secare meaning to cut and segmentum meaning segment; and IE base sek meaning to cut. Definitions are: any of the shaped sheets of canvas or other strong material spread to catch or deflect the wind, by means of which some vessels and some land vehicles are driven forward; sails collectively; a sailing vessel(s); a trip in a boat or ship moved by sails; anything like a sail, as in the arm of a windmill; to be moved forward by means of a sail, or by mechanical means such as a propeller; to move upon or travel by water; to manage a sailboat in racing or cruising; to glide or float steadily through the air; to move smoothly and with dignity, like a ship in full sail; to move quickly; to begin vigorously; throw oneself into something with energy; and to attack, criticize, or reprimand severely. 

Assail is derived from: ME assailen; OFr asaillir; VL assalire; L assilire meaning to leap on with ad meaning to plus salire meaning to leap; and IE base sel also yielding sally. Definitions are: to attack physically and violently; assault; to attack with arguments, questions, and doubts; to begin working on a task with vigor and determination; and to have a forceful effect on.

Sally can be a feminine name also spelled Sarah or Sarai, or it can mean: a sudden rushing forth, as troops to attack besieging forces; any sudden start into activity; a quick witticism; bright retort; quip; an excursion or unusual side trip; jaunt; to come or go out-doors; and to set out on a trip. Recall Sarah, wife of Lot , turned into a pillar of salt when looking back toward Sodom (Genesis 19:26).

Safe derivations are: ME sauf; OFr and L salvus; L salus meaning health, or sound condition; Grk holos meaning whole; Sansk sarva meaning unharmed or whole; and IE base sol meaning whole or well-preserved. Definitions are: free from damage, danger, or injury; secure; having escaped danger or injury; unharmed; giving protection; involving no risk; trustworthy; no longer dangerous; unable to cause trouble or damage; taking no risks; prudent; cautious; in baseball having reached a base without being put out; save; and a container or box that contains valuables that can be locked. The container or box holding valuables can be akin to the human body. The body holds valuable salts. The idea of being safe can be associated with being home, but every child born under normal circumstances leaves home. How safe is safe? Every person is assaulted in one way or another. Assault can be reinterpreted as being exposed to grains of truth or change manifesting bodily transformations. Humans save things in the safe or in salt or store savings away. Make a list of things that are typically saved. Why?  What treasures are stored in the human heart for safe keeping?  Who benefits from these treasures?