How to get the 3 rd highest salary without using any SQL keyword?

SELECT  MIN(Salary)
FROM    (
    	SELECT		DISTINCT TOP(3)	
    			Salary
    	FROM		Table1
    	ORDER BY	Salary
    ) AS d

The following has no SQL Keywords:

Charlie, what's our third highest salary?

Charlie being the head of the payroll department. :-D

Get the top 1 salary that isn't in the top 2:

select top 1 salary 
from salarytable
where salary not in (select top 2 salary 
                     from salarytable order by salary desc)
order by salary desc

and in case you want the third highest value salary, rather than just the third in a sorted list

select top 1 salary 
from salarytable
where salary not in (select distinct top 2 salary 
                     from salarytable order by salary desc)
order by salary desc

note the distinct on the inner query

Sorry, but I have to ask what you mean by key words. SELECT is a keyword. I think you'll be hard pressed to get the data without it.

How about

SELECT TOP(1) Salary
FROM (SELECT TOP(3) Salary
FROM TableX
ORDER BY Salary DESC)
ORDER BY Salary ASC

Maybe you mean you only want to use Standard SQL without T-SQL keywords (such as TOP). For example:

SELECT MAX(Salary) ThirdHighest
FROM Table1 t
WHERE Salary <
(SELECT MAX(Salary)
FROM Table1 t
WHERE Salary <
(SELECT MAX(Salary)
FROM Table1 t));

To be slightly picky, Kev, Grant and Bob's solutions won't necessarily return the third highest salary. They all return the salary from the third row of the table when sorted in salary order. Unless salary is unique that could give a different answer to my query. You decide which meets your actual requirement.