Take a swing at someone Hello everyone! My question is going to be a little bit complicated. I'll do my best to put it as clear as I can. Imagine a situation when a dog is following you, you get angry and you want to scare it away (not sure whether I can use " scare away" in English). So, you find a stick and you pretent like you are about to hit the dog with that stick, but in reality you are not going to hit it you are only want it to run away. In Ukrainian / Russian we use the word "zamahnutsa" what about English, what word do you use when you, for example, raise the stick as if you are about to throw it or hit somebody with it but then do nothing? I looked up some dictionaries and I stumbled acroos the pharase "take a swing at someone" can I use this in that context, "I I took a swing at a dog and it ran away?" Thanks a lot!