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Reader question: Please explain “low key”, as in this sentence: Their wedding last month was a low-key affair. My comments: In other words, it was a relatively quiet event. The newly weds, for instance, chose to keep it private. Only close friends and relatives were invited. And if we are talking about two celebrities here, then perhaps they kept the whole thing secret from the newspapers. And there certainly weren’t paparazzi snatching pictures of the newly weds and guests from across the street, hiding themselves, you know, and their long lenses in the hedges and trees. In other words, the occasion came and went without making a lot of noise. Still in other words, there was no hype. Low-key, you see, is originally a music term. A key on the piano, for instance, is one of the rows of metal pieces you hit to make a particular sound. Some keys give a sharp and shrill sound while others give a low, deep, subdued noise. Needless to say, those that give a subdued noise are low-key. Hence, by extension, if an event is described as low key, it means that participants all keep a low profile. They, for instance, do not advertise the event on TV. This is of course in contrast to high-key events, such as some royal weddings that may dominate the news for weeks and months. Not that the royal families always want the public to know every little detail, be it glorifying or nasty, about them or vice versa, but still they dominate the paper as well as the airwaves. | 
