One of the major reasons that foreign expatriates have difficulty doing business in the United States is that they do not understand American slang. A business executive recently gave the authors the following three examples of statements that had no direct meaning for her because she was unfamiliar with U.S. slang:

He was laughing like hell. Don\'t worry; it\'s a piece of cake. Let\'s throw these ideas up against the wall and see if any of them stick. Why did the foreign expatriate have trouble understanding these statements, and what could be said instead?