Follow your reading...... 班門弄斧，不好意思。

Good read as usual.
My two cents:
Calm sounds like /koulm/ rather than /kalm/



But, it is probable that it was in the theater or movie industry. Perhaps one of the actors was nervous and made a lot of mistakes. The director may have said, "Calm down, now. Get your act together."

Word expert James Rogers says the expression was common by the late nineteen seventies. Mister Rogers says the Manchester Guardian newspaper used it in nineteen seventy-eight. The newspaper said a reform policy required that the British government get its act together.

Now, this expression is heard often when officials of a company meet. One company even called its yearly report, "Getting Our Act Together."

The Japanese visitor was confused by another expression used by American business people. It is cut to the chase.

She heard that expression when she attended an important meeting of one company. One official was giving a very long report. It was not very interesting. In fact, some people at the meeting were falling asleep.

Finally, the president of the company said, "Cut to the chase."

Cut to the chase means to stop spending so much time on details or unimportant material. Hurry and get to the good part.

Naturally, this saying was started by people who make movies. Hollywood movie producers believe that most Americans want to see action movies. Many of their movies show scenes in which the actors chase each other in cars, or in airplanes or on foot.

Cut is the director's word for stop. The director means to stop filming, leave out some material, and get to the chase scene now.

So, if your employer tells you to cut to the chase, be sure to get to the main point of your story quickly.

所有跟帖： 

• 謝謝eyeyey. -任我為- ♂ (161 bytes) () 08/22/2009 postreply 14:59:09

• Thanks eyeyey -eyeyey- ♀ (0 bytes) () 08/22/2009 postreply 16:37:42

• oops. I meant "Thanks Renwowei " :) -eyeyey- ♀ (0 bytes) () 08/22/2009 postreply 16:50:20