Hi Gabriel :) 1. "Play him off". You will notice that at the Oscars (or other awards shows) when someone's speech is too long they start to play music even when the person is still talking, and they turn the microphone off. It is this verb "to play music" that is being used. The full form of the sentence "play him off" would be "Start playing the music so he stops talking and walks off the stage". 2. Both of these are metaphors. i) "Ramping up" refers to the imagery associated with literally, a ramp. It starts at the ground, and then rises as you walk along it. What is being said in the article is that the number of people who are submitting tenders to build the wall is increasing quickly. ii)"Roll out" refers to the imagery associated with a carpet (or something similar) unrolling. Imagine a fully rolled-up red carpet (like at the Oscars) placed on the ground. As you kick the carpet and unroll it you start to see the red colour inside as it moves. What is being said in the article is that even with the information given by Ralph Hicks, it is still unclear who will build the wall, and how it will be built. This information can be seen as "still rolled up in the carpet", so it is unclear how these details of the construction will "roll out" when/if it actually happens. I hope this helps :) Neil