Walking on thin ice

A duck literally walking on thin ice.
Would you take a chance walking on thin ice?
(Photo: Mark Timberlake/Unsplash | Text: David/ArtisanEnglish.jp)

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Idiom: Walking on thin ice

Walking on thin ice is a very precarious pastime indeed.

Every year Canadians die from failing to check the thickness of the ice before going out on it.

With climate change such a huge factor, one never truly knows if the ice is thick enough or not without testing it first.

As dangerous as it is in winter, the cold dark season is not the only time you can find yourself walking on thin ice.


Any time you find yourself on the verge of upsetting someone or causing trouble, you are walking on thin ice.


The amount of danger you are potentially getting into depends on the person you are bothering.

My father was one of those men around whom you stepped very carefully because he was always surrounded by thin ice.

I once saw him pick up another fully grown man, a fisherman nonetheless, and throw him over a pool table.

They had gotten into an argument about something, and the fisherman failed to realize he was walking on thin ice until he found himself flying through the air.

Don’t get me wrong; walking on thin ice is not always so hazardous to your health.

I don’t think your wife or girlfriend is going to pick you up off the floor and throw you across the Kotatsu any time soon, but she may make your life very uncomfortable if you get in her hair or do something she thinks is stupid.

My advice is always to tread carefully, not to upset anyone and continually test so you don’t find yourself walking on thin ice.


Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test

This post is understandable by someone with at least an 8th-grade education (age 13 – 14).

On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 68.

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



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