Screw up his eyes

[Bassim]

I have tried to use "screw up his eyes" in my sentence. Would you please correct my mistakes?

John woke up and screwed up his eyes as he saw heavy rain beating against his window. "How am I going to pull through this day, stony broke?" he thought.

[GoesStation]

Pull through means to survive a medical crisis. Use get through.

If John has no money, he's stone broke.

[Bassim]

GoosStation,

Longman dictionary has "flat/stony broke" meaning completely broke.

[teechar]

I use "stone broke" too; it's more common nowadays.

Use "get through" or "make it through".

The ending is wrong; "broke" is an adjective, not an adverb. Try, e.g.,
I'm flat/stone broke; how am I going to make it through this day?

[GoesStation]

Longman dictionary has "flat/stony broke" meaning completely broke.

Only stone​ is used in American English.

[Piscean]

Only 'stony broke' is common in BrE.

[teechar]

The ngram shows them neck and neck. And that's for BrE.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/grap...0broke%3B%2Cc0

[emsr2d2]

I'm not questioning Ngram's findings but I have never heard "stone broke" in BrE, only "stony broke". Maybe there are regional variations.

"Stone dead" and "stone cold" are very common.

[teechar]

Maybe there are regional variations.

I suspect so.

[Rover_KE]

When I read 'screwed up his eyes' I thought the sun was dazzling him.

Instead, consider grimaced.