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Reader question: Please explain “the other way” in this sentence: He had a million chances to fix this, but he looked the other way. My comments: In other words, he did nothing. He could’ve done something to fix the problem, but he chose to look the other way, i.e. to turn a blind eye to the problem, pretending he does not see it. The expression to remember here is “look the other way.” This way, the other way. This and the other, “the other” being the opposite of “this”. Look this way, you see the center of action. Look the other way, and you won’t see what happens. Obviously because you don’t want to see it. A beggar on the street, say, is begging passersby for a dime. Many passersby see the man and turn to look the other way. That means they don’t want to help him/her. The action, you see, is deliberate. Therefore, the expression “looking the other way” suggests intentional negligence (in order to avoid trouble, shirt responsibility or what have you). While collecting examples for this article, I’ve come across many headlines with someone looking the other way. “Apple Looked the Other Way for Years on Foxconn Worker Abuse” (SofePedia.com, January 26th, 2017) is one example. It means Apple chose to ignore the problem because it actually benefitted from such labor abuses – lower production costs mean higher profits. | 
