Does this sentence make sense?

[Mad-ox]

He wasn’t taken aback by her out of a clear sky question.


out of a clear sky=out of the blue=unexpectedly

 

[Route21]

He wasn’t taken aback by her out of a clear sky question.
out of a clear sky=out of the blue=unexpectedly

As an NES but not a teacher, I have never come across "out of a clear sky".
The standard BrE expression is, as you mention, "out of the blue".

Regards
R21

 

[Mad-ox]

As an NES but not a teacher, I have never come across "out of a clear sky".
The standard BrE expression is, as you mention, "out of the blue".

Regards
R21

I see. However, I have two questions:

1. Could you tell me an American English expression for "out of the blue"?

2. After all, does my sentence make sense? He wasn’t taken aback by her out of the blue question.

Thank you in advance,
Madox

 

[Rover_KE]

Does my sentence make sense? He wasn’t taken aback by her out of the blue question.

As the phrase is used adjectivally, I could accept the hyphenated form: 'out-of-the-blue question'.


A better title would have been Out of the blue.

Extract from the Posting Guidelines:

'Thread titles should include all or part of the word/phrase being discussed.'

Rover

 

[Route21]

I believe the closest AME expression equivalent to "it came out of the blue" that I have heard is "it came out of left field".

See: out of left field - Idioms - by the Free Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

Regards
R21

 

[Route21]

In checking something else, I noticed that "out of the blue" is included in the Forum's list of idioms, but "out of left field" isn't in the list of AME idioms.
Can "out of left field" be added?

Many thanks
R21