A dictionary of Confusable Phrases: More Than 10,000 Idioms and Collocations

butter someone up • oil someone up
butter someone up —(coll.) flatter a person in order to get
him to do smth.: No, I am not trying to butter up the pro-
fessor who is going to grade me on this.
oil someone up —
1
. (Austral. sl.) advise a person; give smb.
reliable information: Don’t worry, I’ll oil him up on what needs
to be done. 2. = butter someone up: He had been chosen be-
cause of his power in the Senate. Kennedy oiled him up and
convinced him he’d be even more powerful as Vice-President.
Note: 
The expression does not correlate in meaning with the
phrase grease someone’s palm (sl.)— pay or bribe a person for
a special favor: We had to grease the palm of the waiter to get
a table in the crowded restaurant.
buy it • get it
buy it—(sl.)
1
. believe smth.: I told my new boyfriend that
I am pregnant with his kid. Do you think he will buy it? Cf.:
sell it—(sl.) persuade a person to accept smth. as true: Don’t try
to sell it to me as a great work of comedy. The film struck me
as being very dumb. 2. die, especially suddenly or violently
(also: buy the farm): By the time we could get to the hospital,
he had bought it.
get it—
1
. (often negat.) understand smth.: As for the movie,
well, I don’t get it. There seems to be something profound
going on here that I don’t understand. 2. (coll.) be punished:
“Boy,” I said, “are you going to get it when mom sees you.”
buy someone off • buy someone out
buy someone off —bribe a person to persuade him do smth.:
It is impossible to open a big gambling operation without
buying off public officials.
buy someone out—
1
. buy smb.’s share of property: He bor-
rowed a large sum of money in order to buy out his partner.
2. buy all of smth. that a person has: He didn’t have much
ice-cream, and he wouldn’t let us buy him out. 3. gain smb.’s
freedom by paying money: Bill’s parents paid a lot of money
to buy him out of the army.