K.Y.

An abbreviation of the Japanese term kuuki-yomenai – which literally means “unable to read the air” and is used to describe someone “clueless” and “out of touch.”

A recent letter to The Financial Times gave a flavor of how K.Y. is used in Japan:

Sir, The hot new word in Japan is “K.Y.” An abbreviation for kuuki-yomenai, it literally means unable to read the air. For an ex-Goldman Sachs partner, John Thain was astoundingly K.Y. He decorated his office as he laid off Merrill Lynch employees, and then he asked for a $10m bonus when the whole country had turned against excessive executive compensation. There was also the little detail that his company was not doing that well.

The height of his K.Y. was the fact that he was buying company stock the day before he was ousted!

Now a true believer (in Goldman superiority) may say that he was buying stock because he knew his departure would ignite the share price, but I am not willing to give Mr Thain that much credit. Anyway, the stock dived on the news.

Japan’s accident-prone prime minister Taro Aso was recently described asK.Y. when he was challenged to a reading test after misreading kanji – the characters used in Japanese writing.