English, baby!

screw it up

Date: May 11 2005

Quote

1. Quote - Listen to the quote and guess what the slang means.

“We’ve worked hard for twelve years and we finally make the cover, and you screw it up with one sentence.”
Brian Bell, of the band, Weezer, talking about bandmate, Rivers Cuomo, and his refusal to rearrange his scheduled Yoga retreat for the Rolling Stone cover photo shoot.

Definition

1. Definition - Study the definition.

when you screw something up, you make a good thing into a bad thing; Weezer had an excellent opportunity to be on the cover of a popular magazine and they didn’t want one guy to screw it up

2. Use - Learn how the slang is used.

I have a friend that whenever there’s a good opportunity, he will screw it up. He doesn’t try to screw it up, it just happens.
For example, we went skiing at the mountain and he broke his ankle. He didn’t want to ruin the trip, to screw it up, but he did.
Another time he was offered a job interview and I told him he had better not screw it up. You know what? He did! He slept in. He didn’t make the interview.
I don’t want to do anything with him any more because I know he will screw it up.

Examples

1. Examples - Hear some example sentences.

“This is my big chance to be discovered. Please don’t screw it up.”

””This is my big chance to be discovered. Please don’t screw it up.”
“Whenever I let you do something, you screw it up. I am tired of giving you chances.”
“I thought your boyfriend loved you. Why did you have to mess around? You had a good relationship. Why did you screw it up?”
“

“Whenever I let you do something, you screw it up. I am tired of giving you chances.”

“I thought your boyfriend loved you. Why did you have to mess around? You had a good relationship. Why did you screw it up?”

Winners

1. Winners - See who guessed the slang definition correctly.

to screw up is to make something happen the wrong way, or not happen.
by Paulo (Salvador, Brasil)
HI, I THINK IT MEANS TO MAKE A BIG MISTAKE BY SOMETHING SAID OR DONE IN A WRONG WAY. Bye,Bye.
by Gustavo (BOGOTA, COLOMBIA)
To ruin sth.or cause sth. to fail “You’d better not screw up this deal”.
by Mehmet Ali (KARS-BTC.Co., TURKEY)
Screw up = make a major mistake, confuse, disrupt
by Jeff (Sao Paulo, Brazil)
I think it means to ruin something
by Diana (Pasto, Colombia)
To mess things up. To totally fail the thing that was orignially remained in good condition.
by Lilian (Taipei, Taiwan)
I think to “screw it up” is to make a mistake. If you work very hard to accomplish something and then you do something stupid, you screw it up.
by Yun Ju (Pusan, S. Korea)
mess things up/ to eliminate the chance to be successful
by Azura (Damansara, Malaysia)
I guess it means get failed or ruined.
by Helen (Beijing, China)
it means to ruin something , to lessen the quality of it..
by paola (pasto, colombia)
If you screw something up, you cause something to fail or to be spoiled.
by Matilda (Taipei, ROC)
it means to ruin through clumsiness or incaution, botch something up.
by Carol (Chicago, US)
ruin it,spoil it jeopardise it
by Urvi (GURGAON, INDIA)
to ruin, to make the actual thing worse than it should be.
by cuisan (chongqing, china)
i thing “screw it up” means to spoil something
by sandrine (rennes, france)
screw it up here probably means mess it up, or ruin sth
by yak (beijing, china)
Screw it up means to make a mistake or make that something good seems like bad to others eyes
by Nyna (Bogota, Colombia)
screw it up:to spoil something,to get something undone after it has been done all tenderly
by edmar (belem, brazil)
screw it up probably means damage
sth. or make sth incomplete etc.
by jihan (hongan,hubei, P. R. China)
ruin it!
by Monika (Sao Paulo, Brazil)
Spoil something.
by Iqbal (Dhaka, Bangladesh)
Screw it up : broken, ruin, damage
by Sosys (Jambi, Indonesia)
to ruin something
by jenny (los meurtos, mexico)
means mess something up.
by Megan (Wuhan, P.R.China)
You ruined everything and all of our efforts were gone.
by ezgi (, )
You mess it up!
You destroy it!
You ruin it!
You spoil it!
by Christine (Frankfurt, Germany)
it means to ruin something
by amir (mashhad, iran)
spoil it all, fail to do something through misbehaviour, refusal or rudeness
by Montserrat (Barcelona, Spain)
to screw up would be spoil something that you or others may be doing.
e.g. if you become my penpal by writting me, I won´t screw our friendship up
by eduardo (Porto Nacional, Brazil)
“Screwing something up” means wasting or spoiling something. That is, “Don’t screw it up” means “Don’t spoil it” and so on.
by Stanley (Chennai, India)