If someone tells you to “read the room,” it means you’ve miscalculated the tone, mood or general “vibe” of a social gathering or group dynamic. Telling a crass joke in the middle of a serious work meeting is an example of failing to “read the room.”
Today, when people say “read the room,” it's usually shared as a friendly word of advice or a playful insult, but where did this phrase come from?
When did people start using ‘read’ figuratively?
As early as the 16th century, English speakers used “read” in a figurative sense to mean discerning another person’s thoughts or feelings.
In 1561, the Italian writer Baldassare Castiglione wrote, “In their countenance and eyes reade what they haue in the hert.” In 1592, a play called "The Tragedye of Solyman and Perseda" included the line, “If heauens were iust, men should haue open brests, That we therein might read their guilefull thoughts.”
By the 19th century, “read” was commonly used to mean grasping something that’s beyond the surface. Here’s an example from a religious treatise from 1875: “The eye of the soul acquires a discernment whereby some can instantly read the characters of others.”
What was the first usage of ‘read the room’?
One of the earliest mentions in print of the phrase “read the room” comes from an 1896 novel called The Trail of the Sword by Gilbert Parker, but it didn’t have the same meaning it does today.
The book follows the exploits of a “mutineer and pirate” named Edward Bucklaw. In one scene, Bucklaw meets with the governor at his mansion. Bucklaw is on his best behavior until the governor steps away momentarily.
“As he did so, Bucklaw read the room—doors, windows, fireplaces—with a grim, stealthy smile trailing across his face.”
In this case, to “read the room” meant to inspect or “case” a location for a potential robbery. Interestingly, that’s the same way the phrase was used in 1973 when it came up in a book about crime and victimization. A psychologist named Alex K. Gigeroff wrote a chapter in the book called “Foraging and Finding: The Precursors of Petty Theft.” He described what it felt like to see the world through the eyes of a purse snatcher:
“[W]hen purses were uppermost in my mind, I began to look at and to look for purses on the street, in stores, in restaurants, in cinemas and was astonished to see just how many purses there were and just how careless some women were with their purses in what they did with them. I learned that one can enter a room and read the room in terms of purses.”
When did ‘read the room’ take on its modern meaning?
One of the first uses of “read the room” in the modern sense appeared in a 1975 issue of the Oakland Post, a Black-owned newspaper from Oakland, California. The full article is not available online, but it’s quoted by the Oxford English Dictionary:
“In another question I asked, has any audience or person felt insulted by your comments, he said no because you read the room when you first bring the group together by asking where they are from. This has a way of relaxing everybody and removes the sensitivity.”
It’s not clear who was being interviewed for the article, but it sounds like a public speaker who addressed sensitive topics in front of groups of strangers. To avoid insulting people, the speaker “read the room” first. That's the clearest evidence that this phrase has been around for at least 50 years.
What was the first group to adopt ‘read the room’ as lingo?
In the 1990s, sales and marketing professionals adopted the concept of “reading the room” as a technique for improving leadership and presentation skills. It was closely associated with “reading” body language and other nonverbal cues.
In a 1991 book titled Art of the Possible: Creating Market Driven Aging Services, author G. Richard Ambrosius shared the following advice for leading a group discussion:
“The moderator is able to 'read' the room on many dimensions. These include:
seeing the room as a group of strangers vying for the approval of the moderator and new ‘peers.’
noting that individuals within a group have a behavior range that runs the gamut from dominant to withdrawn.
seeing when a participant wants to speak before a hand is raised, and ‘reading’ non-verbal clues appropriately.”
