"lousy attempt" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
You can use it to describen a failed effort or endeavor. For example: "The actor's lousy attempt at improvising a comedic scene completely fell flat with the audience."
He's a practitioner of what you could call "process journalism" – where your travel arrangements and your relationship with your commissioning editor and your lousy attempts to read back your shorthand are either candidly or artfully or self-indulgently presented to the reader.
— Jeff Gordinier Zagat Buzz: Slimy salt and pepper shakers, lousy music, attempts to take your plate while you're still eating: By now, you should have figured out that you're in a bad restaurant.
It was an extensive piece and the newspaper did a lousy job in its attempt to mask his identity, a profile shot of the young man sitting on the edge of his clinic bed near a window.
Yet if we in the Incompetent Gardeners Association of Greater New York -- Igagny (ih-GAG-nee), we call it, and yes, we are also founders of the Union of Lousy Acronym Creators -- had attempted the task, the Hoyt Street Garden would have had maybe three daffodils, and two of them would have been bent facedown into the mud.
He once did a lousy imitation of Barbra Streisand, but his attempt to impersonate Hillary is far better, he gets the scolding, self-congratulating tone just right.
For me it's an attempt to do over that lousy MFA I had.
They made only 8 of 29 field-goal attempts (27percentt) and were a lousy 3 of 12 on 3-point tries.
The results are not expected to be more upbeat.Business for Diplomatic Action is the latest in a long series of attempts to do something about America's lousy image abroad.
If you are going to attempt it really go for it and don't be lousy.
