YouTube / iTunes / Spotify / Radio Public / Pocket Casts / Google Podcasts / Breaker / Overcast
Listen to ArtisanEnglish.jp posts & lesson intros here.
Idiom: Treat with kid gloves
First off, we are not talking about wearing children’s gloves here.
If you treat someone with kid gloves, it means you handle them very gently and carefully, often because they are sensitive or the situation is delicate.
The expression comes from the soft leather gloves made from the skin of young goats, called kids, which were used for delicate tasks or worn by wealthy people who never had to get their hands dirty.
Here are some examples of using treat with kid gloves in everyday life.
If you have a friend who is sensitive to criticism, you might need to treat them with kid gloves when giving constructive criticism.
This means choosing your words carefully so you don’t hurt their feelings.
At work, new employees are often treated with kid gloves during their first weeks or months.
Managers want them to feel welcome and not overwhelmed.
Treating someone with kid gloves can help them build confidence before they face bigger challenges.
Teachers might treat students with kid gloves when they are learning something new and difficult.
By being patient and gentle, teachers help students feel safe and supported.
However, if children are always treated with kid gloves, they may not learn how to deal with tough situations.
Finally, we cannot forget the most fickle, sensitive, and thin-skinned man in the world, Donald J. Trump.
World leaders have spent the last 12 months treating good ol’ Trump with kid gloves.
But finally, his crazy statements about America needing Greenland for ‘national security’ have forced them to take the gloves off.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 75.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.