3 ms·

What in the world does "read the air" mean? Is it an uncommon way to say something like "read between the lines" or is it something else entirely?

• Cytobit 7y ago
  From a quick search, it appears to be a Japanese idiom that means the same thing as "read the room". To assess a social situation.
• johntiger1 7y ago
  Maybe something like "read the room"? Native English speaker here and I'm just as baffled
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• gwbas1c 7y ago
  There was a hacker news article about it last week. It's similar to "read between the lines." In this case, I was working with a general contractor to build a home, and I kept pointing out that "newish" houses (10-20 years old) in the area were significantly cheaper, and that his stock of new homes was sitting unsold for a very long time. Throughout the process: 1 - He sent me to a plumbing and lighting store where everything affordable was something that would go in a very cheap apartment. Everything else was absurdly expensive. We ordered everything off of Amazon for a reasonable cost. 2 - He tried to pass a very large, and obvious, billing error from the electric company off on me 3 - At times he would hint to me about how much money he was loosing floating interest on his unsold homes. These homes had the high-end fixtures where he could have saved about $10-20,000 just buying "nice" stuff at Amazon. 4 - When the house was done, a family architect looked at my basement and told me just how over-built my structural members are.