Michael Chugani 褚简宁 - walking on eggshells｜又中又英

As I said in my previous column， readers had emailed me with many suggestions on what topics to write about， including idioms and proverbs. I heard two interesting idioms while watching the TV news last week. The first was 「walking on eggshells」. An eggshell is the hard but easily breakable outside of an egg.Eggshells will break if you walk on them. You have to be careful even when holding an egg. It will break if you drop it. The expression 「walking on eggshells」 means to be very careful about what you do or say so you won」t offend anyone. People close to outgoing Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor have told me they have to walk on eggshells when talking with her because she is easily offended.

The expression originated in the 1800s. In those days people who collected eggs in hen houses had to be very careful not to walk on broken eggshells that might disturb the hens. The other expression I heard was 「the juice is not worth the squeeze」. It comes from the expression 「is the juice worth the squeeze？」 I explained this expression several years ago but will explain again for new readers. Squeezing oranges by hand to get orange juice is hard work. You have to put a lot of effort into squeezing enough oranges to get just one glass of orange juice. If you say 「is the juice worth the squeeze？」 it means is it worth trying very hard to achieve something when the end result is minimal？

If you passed an exam after studying very hard you can say the juice was worth the squeeze. If an employer offers you a job that requires you to work long hours seven days a week with very little pay, you can tell the employer the juice is not worth the squeeze. If an employer offers you a job that requires you to work long hours six days a week but with very high pay you can say the juice is worth the squeeze.
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正如我在上一篇文章中所说，不少读者写电邮给我，提出很多建议我到底可以写甚么题目，其中包括可以写一写成语和谚语。我上星期看电视新闻报道时，就听到两个挺有趣的成语。第一个是「walking on eggshells」。 An eggshell就是蛋壳，坚固却又易碎，若你踏上去，蛋壳（eggshells）就会破碎。即使只是用手拿着一只蛋，也要相当谨慎，若掉下来它就会碎掉。习语「walking on eggshells」是指如履薄冰、战战兢兢地做事或说话，以免得罪任何人。那些将要离任的特首林郑月娥的人曾经告诉我，他们跟她说话时总是伴君如伴虎、小心翼翼的（walk on eggshells），因为她很容易感到被冒犯。

这个习语来源自十九世纪，当时人们在鸡舍收集鸡蛋时，必须万分小心，不要走在破碎的蛋壳（eggshells）上，免得打扰了母鸡。另一个我听到的习语是「the juice is not worth the squeeze」。它来自习语「is the juice worth the squeeze？」我几年前曾解释过这个习语，但会为新读者们再解释一下。用手榨橙汁是个苦差，你必须要用许多的气力，挤拧有够多的橙，才勉强榨出一杯橙汁。若你说「is the juice worth the squeeze？」，意思便是，当结果是那么微小，还是否值得为此去劳心劳力，务要促成其事？

若你寒窗苦读而考试合格，你便可以说 the juice was worth the squeeze，一切艰苦的付出都是值得的。若一位雇主给你一份工作，却要你一星期七天长时间工作，薪酬却只得那么一丁点，你便可以跟那位雇主说这不值得啊，the juice is not worth the squeeze。若一位雇主给你一份工作，要求你一星期工作六天，但人工很高，你便可以说 the juice is worth the squeeze。中译：七刻
Michael Chugani 褚简宁