Learn English – Someone who can’t abide a joke against themselves

word-request

A direct excerpt from a book:

'They can laugh at jokes; they read every book by P.G. Wodehouse and love his quiet humour; they can enjoy a joke against you. What they cannot abide is a joke against themselves.'

I'd like to know if there is a specific word(noun, adjective) for such people. I don't know how else to further explain my question. Pretty much everything is stated in the excerpt.

Post Answer EDIT: I'm not looking for words related to sensitive-brittle natured or synonyms.
Such people enjoy joke on others but not on themselves. Maybe I'm being too specific, but such people are not at all sensitive, thin skinned or else they wouldn't be making jokes on others.

Best Answer

There's a very specific idiomatic usage for OP's context...

someone can dish it out but he or she can’t take it (Cambridge Dictionary)

someone easily criticizes other people but does not like it when other people criticize him or her:
Example: He’s mad at me for teasing him – he can dish it out, but he can’t take it!

There's also the closely-related:

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen

...which often carries more the sense of if you can't cope, you should leave the work to someone who can, but I wouldn't think it unusual if I heard that said to someone who complained about being the butt of too many "office banter" jokes.

I certainly can't think of one, and I think it's highly unlikely there's a single-word adjective to describe exactly the kind of person OP describes. It's just too specific.

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