ginger = "extremely careful"

[Jonathan Lighter]

As engineers laid explosives to implode a factory chimney, Fox anchor John Scott, a Coloradan, comments that "there's some very ginger work going on there."

  OED calls this sense of "ginger" (1600, 1675, 1882) "Obs. exc. dial." This is the first time I can recall hearing a living person say it, but if you think "gingerly" _must_ be an adverb because it ends in  "-ly," it makes perfect sense.

  Not that many Americans say "gingerly."

  JL




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