Walking on Egg Shells

 

Walking On Egg Shells

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Meaning:

Walking on Egg Shells means that you have to be careful about your words or actions around another person. To be overly careful around someone to avoid upsetting them, to be careful of your behavior to avoid offending someone.

Origin:

Walking on eggshells has only been around since the 1800s; walking on eggshells means you are trying not to cut your feet; you must go slow and step softly.

One of the first written records was talking about chickens and how they must move about without breaking the eggs in the book The history of the Hen Fever by George Pickering Burnham in 1855, it was meant to be a funny account of the chicken fanny fern it reads:

“…She was rather long-legged, and "spindle-shanked," but she moved about skippingly and briskly, as if she were treading upon thin eggshells. Her feet were very delicate and very narrow, and her body was thin and trim…”

The next account where it is recorded as walking on eggshells the way we would use it today is in Newness of life, a series of sermons and addresses by William Hay Aitken in 1878; it read:

Other Christians walk very timorously, always expecting to make mistakes; but there is a great difference between walking timorously and walking accurately. Some strike out wildly, never thinking where they are going ; others go along painfully, as if they were always walking on egg-shells or glass bottles. 

Example:

Today we still use walking on eggshells to express that we have to move or speak cautiously, watch what you say; and example sentence is:

"Whenever Lisa is around the house, everyone has to walk on eggshells around her in order not to get her annoyed."

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