meaning - "Screwed" vs. "nailed": why is the slang so different?


Picture of some screw and nails


While the two names nail and screw have similar shapes and functions, why do the verbs differ so much? Someone has screwed something sounds like they have ruined something to me, while someone has nailed something sounds like they have successfully accomplished the thing.


So why have these similar words acquired this much dissimilarity?


From Merriam-Webster:



Screw:


(1) : to mistreat or exploit through extortion, trickery, or unfair actions; especially : to deprive of or cheat out of something due or expected (2) : to treat so as to bring about injury or loss (as to a person's reputation) —often used as a generalized curse





Nail:


to perform or complete perfectly or impressively



From Urban Dictionary (which I am aware is not a reliable source, but sometimes it can be helpful):



Screwed



  1. To be in serious trouble.

  2. A word describing something in a state of disrepair.


  3. A word to describe a person who is heavily under the influence of alcohol and/or narcotic material, to an extent where it affects their behavioural patterns.



    1. "When my parents found out I killed their parrot, I'm screwed!"

    2. "Wow, someone screwed that car up pretty bad!"

    3. "Wow, that guy is screwed!"







Nailed


Having completed a task with great accuracy.


"A+! I nailed that test."


or


"I threw the rock and, nailed that guy between the eyes!"




It would be invaluable, if someone could elaborate more on the historical etymology of these definitions as well.



Answer



Nails


‘Nailing’ something is basically the equivalent of hitting the nail on the head. Hitting the nail on the head is, as anyone who’s ever tried hanging a picture on a wall knows, something that requires great precision and the proper application of force (and in my own case, often also the proper application of a few Band-Aids or similar).


As such, it is quite logical that ‘nailing’ something—i.e., fastening it with a nail by delivering one quick blow in exactly the right place to make it sit tight just where it’s supposed to—would acquire the meaning of “to perform or complete perfectly or impressively”.


Screws


Unlike nails, screws are not quickly fastened with one blow. Rather, they must work their way in slowly, and they do so while turning around constantly.


It is a very common metaphor, cross-linguistically, to indicate that something has gone wrong or is not as it should be by likening it to something that turns around or loops out of place. A screw is a good candidate for this. (Compare also the word awry, meaning ‘amiss, wrong’, which is etymologically from the now obsolete verb wry, which meant ‘to twist, turn, swerve’. That’s a similar development.)


If a nail gives the mental image of something going straight in, according to a linear projection, just the way it’s supposed to, a screw gives the mental image of something curving, looping, winding around, in an inefficient manner.


Further derivations


Once you’ve got those two basic meanings, it’s very easy to derive further slang terms from them. The nail-based ones are actually remarkably few in number, but the screw-based ones abound: you can screw something up (mess it up), you can be screwy (crazy), you can be screwed (ruined, done for), you can ‘screw it’ (forget it, leave it aside), you can screw someone over (cheat them), you can screw around (fool around), you can screw someone (as in, “Screw you!”, not-so-politely telling them to go to hell), etc.


Interestingly, both ‘nail’ and ‘screw’ can refer to sexual intercourse—but with the very fundamental difference (borne over from the basic meanings of the word) that screwing someone just refers, in a roundabout way, to the general ‘in-out’ motions performed during sex, while nailing someone indicates that there is a nailer and a nailee: one party is ‘using’ the nail, and the other party is implicitly likened to a wall that the nail goes into. In other words, it is quite common for a guy to brag to his friends that he ‘nailed’ a girl; but not very common for a girl to say that she ‘nailed’ a guy.


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