English idioms: screw up

Posted on August 20, 2006
Filed under 2-minute English, Idioms and slang, Intermediate, Listening | 3 Comments

 
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Welcome to 2 minute English, real-life authentic examples that teach you business English vocabulary, slang, idioms and more—all in just two minutes a day. Brought to you by Better at English dot com.

Today we give you a two-for-one deal: the phrase to screw something up and the noun screw-up.

"I forgot what I was going to say and completely screwed up my presentation. It was so embarrassing!"

To screw something up.

Meaning

If you screw something up, it means you you make a mistake, damage something, or spoil something.

"What kind of punishment do you give to employees who screw up important projects?"

So, can you guess what it means if you call a person a screw-up?

"Bill is the only screw-up in a family of successes; it seems he can’t do anything right."

If you call someone a screw-up, it means that they are someone who makes a lot of mistakes or very bad decisions.

"Screw up" is also a synonym for a mistake, a blunder, or badly handled situation.

"Bill lost his job because his constant screw-ups were costing the company a fortune."

So Bill is a screw up, and he’s always screwing up!

Authentic Example

Today’s authentic example comes from the BBC Online:

Internet giant AOL has apologised for releasing the search queries of more than 650,000 of its US subscribers.

The company admitted the release to researchers was ‘a screw up’ and had breached the privacy of its users.

See how to screw something up is used.

See how the noun screw up is used.

Dictionary link for "screw up"

That’s all from 2-minute English for today; we’ll see you next time!

3 Comments

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Comments

3 Responses to “English idioms: screw up”

  1. Sergey Tsiplakov on October 27th, 2006 08:12

    Thank you for your great job!
    Unfortunately, I cant download mp3 file :-(

  2. Lori on October 27th, 2006 09:03

    Thank you very much for letting me know, Sergey. The link should work now.

  3. derick on September 14th, 2007 10:52

    thanks for help.
    could you also prepare a list of slangs and idioms per topic.for example, if a person runs low on cash, what are other idioms or slangs we can use to replace the idiom “to run low on cash.” Please also provide sample conversations with idioms and slangs. again, thank you very much.

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