Salty Wishes for Good Health

From my days as an ER doc I know all the ways that patients try to convince themselves that there is really not a problem.  Its a natural tendency of course.  But you have to be realistic.  So recently when I switched roles and was on the receiving end of ER care I was able to keep a reasonable perspective.

Yes, your hand needs 8 stitches (don't ask) but lets just check that blood pressure...

They were nice about it and opined that maybe it was elevated due to stress, but frankly its been a bit up for a while and I don't actually find the need for stitches to be all that stressful.  It's just one of those things.

So a few changes are needed.  More exercise, lose some weight, etc.  Fine.  But its the other life style changes that are annoyances.  I like salt.  This of course gets me thinking immediately about....etymology.

If the goal is to prevent heart attacks and strokes it is for the moment* considered OK to have, oh lets say, one alcoholic beverage a day.  But not ok to be a Souse.

Souse is a fascinating word.  It comes to us from Old French and means "pickled or steeped in vinegar".  The extension of this to being pickled by alcohol is a recent and somewhat jokey development.  Old French of course derives much from Latin and probably Souse got its origins in Sal, the Latin for salt.

I'm pretty typical in liking salt.  It has been popular throughout human history and so the word turns up in many times and places.  Greek: Hals.  German: Salz.  And of course Sal and its derivatives.  Salary, based on the notion that sometimes Romans were paid in salt. Oddly some words that should be related are not.  Salacious is rather akin to "salty" but of a completely different etymology.  And sadly for the plight of those on a low sodium diet, Salubrius - meaning healthy - has nothing to do with salt, being a derivation of Salus the Roman goddess of health.**

Drat.  Although I doubt my wife has enough faith in my etymological musings to have bought that line anyway.... 
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* The official line on the healthy effects of modest alcohol intake go back and forth periodically.  If it happens to be out of fashion at the moment I think I'll just continue my current proclivities until Science catches up with me.

** Something I did not know.  To "salute" someone is actually to wish them good health. I suspect many beleaguered recruits wished their drill sergeants otherwise.