Idioms: Air - be left hanging in the a.

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Idiom(s) of the day: Be left hanging in the air

My category (Russian-to-English translation): Решение (Decisions). Начало действия и остановка (Starting and stopping). Прогресс (Progress)

Explanation(s):

Collins Cobuild Dictionary of Idioms, 2004 (CCDI):

If you say that a question or remark is left hanging in the air, you mean that people avoid discussing it because they do not want to deal with it or the issues involved.

Lingvo (www.lingvo.com):

To leave undecided or unsettled.

Babylon (www.babylon.com):

Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary v4.7:

Translation(s):

CCDI:

Повиснуть в воздухе; остаться нерешенным, невыясненным.

Lingvo (www.lingvo.com):

Babylon (www.babylon.com):

Multitran (www.multitran.ru):

Multilex (www.multilex.ru):

Examples:

CCDI:

Asked how many arrest orders she had received so far from her colleagues in Spain, she walked away and left the question hanging in the air.

The presenter made intelligent points, but never challenged anybody, so we were left with a lot of questions hanging in the air.

He looked at neither of them but left his remark hanging in the air.

Lingvo (www.lingvo.com):

Ted's mother didn't know what to do about the broken window, so his punishment was left hanging in the air until his father came home.

Whether or not they will be leaving next year was left hanging in the air at the end of the meeting.

Babylon (www.babylon.com):

Oxford English Dictionary (OED) v4.0:

Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary v4.7:

British National Corpus (BNC), Mark Davies (http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/): [leave] hanging in the air, total 3

I mean it's really just a question as the these are mentioned as items left hanging in the air

If this so-called round is left incomplete the offender, virtual or actual, is left hanging in the air, uncertain as to his moral status in the undertakings that will follow.

About, for example, the internal problems in what was the Soviet Union, a story we began some years ago, but are now in danger of leaving hanging in the air.

Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), Mark Davies (http:// www.americancorpus.org/): [leave] hanging in the air, total 4

Rotation, he thought, would throw anything not firmly attached off the surface, and "animals and other weights would be left hanging in the air." [literal meaning]

Another source of spurious profundity is DeLillo's constant allusions to momentous feelings and portents -- allusions that are either left hanging in the air or are conveniently cut short by a narrative pretext.

I felt kind of foolish, with my question left hanging in the air like that.

The baseball death sentence everyone expected was handed down yesterday, and the question left hanging in the air was whether yesterday marked the end of only the 1994 season or the end of baseball as we know it.

My companion project: An Idiom a Day (www.twitter.com/AVDemid): The matter of le coq chantant raised by CerebrisLS should be addressed promptly and in depth rather than being left hanging in the air.