"Up to" or "down to"?

by John
(Portugal)

Some people seem to think that "down to me" is a trendy way of saying "up to me".

I often hear expressions such as,
"It's down to us to win the next game."

Surely anything that's still in the future which we want to affect is "up to us".

"Down to us" is what has already happened, e.g.,
"it´s down to us that we lost last week".

Am I correct about this?

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Hi John,

This is an interesting question. At first I thought that you could use "down" to in the way you mentioned but you are right; we should use "up to" for future events.

Just note that you need to change how you construct your example.

Losing the game last week, was down to us.

Here is an example:
The deficit is not down to us, says the Department of Health officials.

Hope that helps.
Diana