Another reason the pasta terminology is bad is that I bet a reasonable fraction of the population have always believed that the salt is for taste, and have never heard any other justification. For them, “salt in pasta water fallacy” would be a pretty confusing term. I like “epsilon fallacy”.
I had never heard about the salt making pasta cook faster. I know that some people only add salt when the water is on the point of boiling because this makes the boiling faster (which is also true but a negligibly tiny effect: adding salt before just increases the boiling point, meanwhile adding it when the past is already about to boil breaks surface tension and adds nucleation centres which precipitate the formation of bubbles).
Another reason the pasta terminology is bad is that I bet a reasonable fraction of the population have always believed that the salt is for taste, and have never heard any other justification. For them, “salt in pasta water fallacy” would be a pretty confusing term. I like “epsilon fallacy”.
I am in that subset.
I had never heard about the salt making pasta cook faster. I know that some people only add salt when the water is on the point of boiling because this makes the boiling faster (which is also true but a negligibly tiny effect: adding salt before just increases the boiling point, meanwhile adding it when the past is already about to boil breaks surface tension and adds nucleation centres which precipitate the formation of bubbles).
Sounds like those people are victim of a salt-in-pasta-water fallacy.