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Reader question: Please explain "kept the gloves on" in this headline: "In Democratic Debate, the Candidates Mostly kept the gloves on". My comments: In American politics, presidential candidates from both Democratic and Republican parties have to participate in televised debates before each party settle on their candidate to run for President. The debates are designed to allow candidates to face off against each other, answering the same voter questions for the latter to decide whom to vote for. Many such debates have become ugly affairs with candidates calling each other names and making all sorts of hurtful allegations. In the (latest) Democratic debate, however, candidates mostly kept the gloves on. Keeping the gloves on means that, this time around, they were not particularly nasty towards one another. Instead, they were rather nice, soft or merciful. Keeping the gloves on, you see, is the very opposite of taking the gloves off, which, too, going back to the beginning, is a term that originates in boxing. Yes, the gloves refer to the boxer's gloves. Today's boxers all wear a pair of leather gloves with which to hit an opponent, on the head or the torso. The gloves are made in such a way as to be fat and soft - lessening their impact, therefore softening the blow. The bigger the gloves, the lesser the resulting pain they inflict. . In the old days, however, boxing matches were brutal, gloveless affairs. Boxers fought each other with their bare knuckles. | 
