chalk up to

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chalk (something) up to (third-person singular simple present chalks up to, present participle chalking up to, simple past and past participle chalked up to)

1. (transitive, idiomatic) To attribute or account for something; to ascribe.

   Chalk it up to fear that he didn't finish.

   • 1990 October 5, “Souter plans to get right down to work”, in Fort Worth Star-Telegram, volume 85, number 154, section 1, page 14:

     “You can chalk it up maybe to, as one of my friends says, a nautical superstition,” he said. “Maybe I read too many Greek tragedies. I don't believe something’s going to happen like that until it’s happened.

   • 2013 August 28, Derek Thompson, “How Goliaths Beat Themselves: Microsoft's Mobile Failure and the Innovator's Dilemma”, in The Atlantic‎:

     Some of the best pre-mortems for Steve Ballmer, out-going CEO of Microsoft, have chalked up the company's problem to the "innovator's dilemma."

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