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My question is that what the difference is between two phrases ,if any, from grammatical or practical point of view

Once my dream was to score the goal during a soccer game

,but it never worked as I expected 

OR

,but nothing worked as I expected.

Marek
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  • "Nothing worked" seems rather unusual and unidiomatic to me. I've never seen it in any context. However, "it never worked" is practically common and it denies the plan's working out. – M.A.R. Jan 13 '15 at 20:39
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    Nothing worked sounds fine to me. It would make more sense if the goal you were pursuing was more complicated. "Once I tried to build a house out of glass bottles, but nothing worked as I expected. The glue didn't stick well to glass, so I had to tie the bottles together with twine. Then the soil I built it on settled, and I had to brace up one corner on cinder blocks. Finally a tree fell on it when I was almost finished, smashing it to bits. Nothing worked as I expected." – Adam Jan 13 '15 at 21:41

2 Answers2

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To say "nothing worked" is to say that none of the (multiple things that you tried, or multiple events that occurred) worked out well. To say "it never worked out" is to say that one thing ("it", meaning the dream as a whole) did not work at first, or later, or ever.

Brian Hitchcock
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You probably mean:

Once my dream was to score the goal during a soccer game, but it never worked out as I expected.

Once my dream was to score the goal during a soccer game, but nothing worked out as I expected.

It never worked out - the "it" to me suggests a bit more of an established context - as though there was an earlier conversation regarding dreams or life events, or that there was something specific that prevented things from working out, whereas nothing worked out doesn't make that assertion.

Probably not a big difference in meaning between the two.

Community
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LawrenceC
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  • and, such a sentence make sense ?: John was supposed to borrow me the money, nothing worked as expected. – Marek Jan 13 '15 at 22:58
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    Say, "John was supposed to lend me the money, but it didn't work out as expected." – LawrenceC Jan 13 '15 at 23:11
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    The first one just means the dream did not end up happening, though it implies that there was some significant reason as to why. The second one implies that there was some number of things that could have led up to scoring the goal, but each of them did not turn out. So I guess the difference is one big thing went wrong versus many smaller things went wrong. – Kai Jan 14 '15 at 00:55