Idiomatic phrases

The sixth entry is prendere con le pinze, and both languages ask you to take the doubtful thing with something — but the something could hardly be less alike. English seasons it: « take it with a pinch of salt », an old rendering of the Latin cum grano salis, as though a claim were a dish that needed help going down. Italian reaches instead for le pinze, the tongs, and the whole point of tongs is that the hand stays clear. The speaker is not making the statement easier to swallow; they are declining to touch it. The difference shows the moment the phrase moves. Andarci con le pinze keeps the same instrument and means to go very carefully about something delicate — a conversation, a piece of bad news — and there « a pinch of salt » is no use at all, because English has changed image again and put on gloves: « to handle with kid gloves ». So one Italian tool covers both scepticism about a figure and tact towards a person, where English goes to the kitchen for the first and to the wardrobe for the second.