Meaning of UP IN THE AIR - A Really Short English Lesson with Subtitles

So, in English when we say that something is

"up in the air", it means that it is undecided,

or that it is not for sure yet when, or if it will happen.

A good example of this would be when a family plans

to have Christmas dinner together.

Sometimes they need to find a date, so they might decide

that Christmas dinner will be on the 22nd of December,

but that date will be up in the air until everyone

in the family agrees that it works, so we would say,

Christmas dinner is most likely going to be on the 22nd,

but the date is up in the air at this point, because we

still haven't talked to everyone in the family.

So, again, when something is up in the air,

it means that it is decided, undecided, sorry,

it means that it is undecided, or it hasn't been

determined yet when it will happen, so anyways,

up in the air.

Another phrase that we have, that kind of relates to this

is if something is on hold.

When something is on hold, it means that it was planned,

but now other things have come up and it is

currently on hold, so that would mean you planned something

for a certain date, but after you planned to have it

on that date, other information has come foreword,

or other things have happened that make the plan

to be on hold.

That means that you have to kind of wait to figure out

if that date still works.

So, when something is up in the air, it is not

quite determined to be on that date.

When something is on hold, it means that you planned

to have it on a certain date, but now that date

might not work anymore, so you've put the plans on hold.

Anyways, Bob the Canadian here and you're learning

just a little bit of English with me everyday.

Thanks for watching.