WotD: Tread lightly

While some people have acquired the delicate art and ability to tread lightly, others value audacity and boldness.

They believe in saying what’s on their mind no matter the consequences or who will be hurt by their thoughts and opinions.

To tread lightly means to act carefully and behave so as not to upset or offend anyone.

Politicians, or at least politicians who stay around for a long time, can master the art of treading lightly.

They know when to talk tough and when to tread carefully.

It’s one of the reasons why it’s so difficult to get a direct answer from a politician.

If you ask a politician if it’s raining outside, they’ll tell you it all depends on your point of view.

If you’re a farmer who needs rain, then yes, it’s raining.

However, if the politician is giving you a pitch on the benefits of solar energy, then no, it’s not raining – it’s just extremely humid today.

When I talk to my wife, I either remember to tread gently or suffer the consequences.

When she says, ‘Does this dress make me look fat?’ the best answer is, ‘That colour doesn’t match your eyes.’

I had to learn to tread lightly around the f-word.

Then there are dangerous people or people with short tempers around whom we must learn to tread lightly.

Some people have certain trigger words that can send them off on a tangent and begin a rant that will last for hours.

Now, nobody wants to listen to them talk about the Constitution, immigrants or the price of gasoline, so they learn to tread lightly when talking to these people.

They quickly learn that particular topics should be avoided at all costs.

Although we can acquire the delicate art of treading lightly, most of us learn the hard way through the process of trial and error.

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 70.

The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.