6
votes
Accepted
Is "clap somebody out" common or is it used to encourage someone to get on stage for performance?
I don't think that "clapping somebody to encourage them to go on stage" is a sufficiently common experience that there is a set phrase for it.
I would take it that woman calling that (or, of ...
- 76.5k
4
votes
Accepted
Is it natural to say "I can still smell a hint of something"?
To call a faint smell of something a 'hint' (of that thing) is quite normal English. A hint of lavender, of smoke, of urine, of cheese, of perfume. Another very commonly used word is 'whiff'.
faint ...
- 74.3k
3
votes
Accepted
Is it correct to say "I am rolling my friend singing" in everyday English?
When capturing a video of your friend singing with your smartphone, the most natural and commonly used phrases would be:
"I am recording my friend singing." - This is a simple and clear way ...
- 598
2
votes
Accepted
Can I say "they are playing office politics in their company" to mean different groups in the company are trying to get more influence?
The phrase office politics is quite wide and can be used to describe factionalism in the office for players to gain influence as the OP has described. Office politics
involves the use of power and ...
- 18.8k
2
votes
Accepted
Is it natural to say "the news came to the king's ears"?
More natural, I think, than "came to the king's ears" is "reached the king's ears".
FWIW, here's an ngram.
- 132k
2
votes
Accepted
Is it correct to say "Do all your friends tuck in like that?"?
To "tuck in", without any additional clarification, idiomatically means to begin eating heartily. So your sentence sounds like you're asking about the other person's friend's table etiquette....
- 108k
2
votes
Accepted
Is it rude for me to say to my grandma, "you are easy on the eyes"?
Yes, this is not something you would normally say to your grandmother. "Easy on the eyes" is a slang term meaning "pretty" or "handsome". It has a certain amount of ...
- 68.5k
1
vote
What is the origin and meaning of 'rise and shine'?
It is said (usually) by parents to their children to tell them to get out of bed.
It is unlikely that many English learners would need to use it. Probably it is a metaphor, telling the child to be ...
- 228k
1
vote
Is it natural to say "the news came to the king's ears"?
Come to one's ears is found in thefreedictionary:
to be heard by one eventually
The idiom come to one's knowledge is more common and is defined as
to become known to one
Google has a similar ...
- 18.8k
1
vote
Is it correct to say "I am rolling my friend singing" in everyday English?
Until you explained the situation, the elliptical "I am rolling my friend singing" in the question title made little sense to me.
When an old-school film camera was capturing footage, we ...
- 132k
1
vote
Accepted
Do you say "I will look/watch out for my friend that needs to be protected" or "I will look/watch out for the one that might hurt my friend"?
The phrasal verb look out for has both meanings, as explained in OLD and shown in its two examples in sense B1:
look out for somebody
to take care of somebody and make sure nothing bad happens to ...
- 18.8k
1
vote
Do you say "I can't sleep" for repeated event and "I can't fall asleep" for one specific occasion?
I can't sleep and I can't fall asleep don't have the distinction the OP described, habitual against one-off.
The former doesn't have the habitual sense; to have that meaning, we need some context:
I ...
- 18.8k
1
vote
Is it rude for me to say to my grandma, "you are easy on the eyes"?
I don't know your grandmother, but "easy on the eyes" is nearly always used to mean "good-looking, attractive, sexy". Are you saying that she is the sort of person that men would ...
- 228k
1
vote
To extort someone and extort someone out of something?
This is colloquial American English.
They extorted him out of millions.
The usage follows, by analogy, the pattern of
They cheated him out of millions.
They tricked him out of millions.
They ...
- 132k
1
vote
To extort someone and extort someone out of something?
The body text should use for and not out of:
... a scheme to extort Elvis Presley’s family for millions ...
M+W has a few examples on this use:
The attackers attempted to extort the district for ...
- 18.8k
1
vote
Is "tartar" more common than "scale" in dentistry?
It is actually incorrect to refer to tartar as 'scale' in both British and American English, although it seems to be a common error made by some native speakers. The technical terms for this buildup ...
- 108k
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