A woman from Japan, who had visited major businesses and investment companies in New York City, was telling a friend about her trip to the US. "I studied English before I left home. But I still was not sure that people were speaking English."
Her problem is easy to understand. Americans in business are like people who are in business anywhere. They have a language of their own. Some of the words and expressions deal with the special areas of their work. Other expressions are borrowed from different kinds of work such as the theater and movie industry. One such saying is get your act together.
When things go wrong in a business, an employer may get angry. He may shout, "Stop making mistakes. Get your act together." Or, if the employer is calmer, he may say, "Let us get our act together." Either way, the meaning is the same. Getting your act together is getting organized. In business, it usually means to develop a calm and orderly plan of action.
It is difficult to tell exactly where the saying began. 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 1970s. He says the Manchester Guardian newspaper used it in 1978. 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."
26. Paragraph 1 is written mainly to .
A. tell us the Japanese woman's English is poor
B. tell us it is important to grasp spoken English
C. lead to the subject in the whole passage
D. tell us traveling in the US is very difficult
27. The reason why the woman was not sure that people were speaking English was that .
A. they speak too fast to follow
B. they have some special words and expressions of their own in their field
C. they didn't want the woman to learn their experience
D. they are from theater and movie industry
28. We can infer that the saying "get your act together" .
A. began from movie industry
B. was created by word expert James Rogers in the 1970s
C. was first used by the Manchester Guardian newspaper
D. is used commonly in businesses and investment companies at present
29. The best title for the passage is .
A. Different Countries, Different Languages
B. The Experience in the US
C. How to Learn English Well
D. The Word and Its Story: Get Your Act Together