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Sun 14 Nov, 2010 07:00 am
Could anybody tell me what does the phrase "get its own house"mean in the sentence "With Asia's economic meltdown rattling the Beijing leadership, Zhu and his supporters now have a powerful argument that China must get its own house in order to prevent meddling by the International Monetary Fund or other outsiders. "
The stock phrase is "to get its own house in order." The "in order" part cannot be separated from the rest of the phrase. It means that someone or something (in this case, China) must solve its own problems before criticizing others, or before taking on the problems of others. The use of the stock phrase in that sentence is awkward, and not typical of its common use in English.
@Setanta,
Thank you very much . I finally found my mistake.
@Setanta,
Quote:The use of the stock phrase in that sentence is awkward, and not typical of its common use in English.
Ignore this piece of nonsense. The phrase fits just fine. This is from the article found at the following link.
http://www.businessweek.com/archives/1998/b3567113.arc.htm
Setanta has this illusion that he's some kind of writer.
@ehBeth,
Are you ehSeth or ehBeth trying to give a boost to Set's stock? You'll need a way bigger campaign than this to help that language doofus.
@JTT,
JTT, shame on you. You are being unnecessarily unpleasant.
@JTT,
you're goofy
and that's me, being nice
@ehBeth,
Your response was goofy, Beth. What was its intended purpose?
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