short take: lead--another meaning?

[Dan Goncharoff]

I meant what I wrote:

"you can lead a statistical category at the end of the season"

"Goals scored" is a statistical category. So is "goals allowed" and
"assists". You lead in assists, and that applies at the end of the
season, but you never win in assists. Go back to your original quote:
"Gomez, who entered camp after becoming the first American player to
*lead* a foreign league in scoring...", where scoring is just another
statistical category.

If you have an instance where "lead" is used to mean "win", I would love
to see it. This isn't one.

DanG

On 5/29/2010 6:43 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok<aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: short take: lead--another meaning?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Are you suggesting I misquoted or misinterpreted the quotation?
>
> Or perhaps you believe that the statement, such as, "He led the league
> in scoring for three consecutive seasons," means something like, "At any
> point in the last three seasons, he had more goals than any other member
> of the league." To be honest, I am not even sure there /is/ a reasonable
> alternative interpretation that does not involve "winning" the scoring
> "title", as you put it.
>
> Sorry, I disagree with you, Dan--based on evidence. I have no problem
> with disagreement on this issue, but you'd have to come up with a
> reasonable alternative explanation of the actual use, not of the general
> concept. Simply saying that it's impossible does not contradict
> instances in the wild.
>
>       VS-)
>
> On 5/29/2010 5:44 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>
>> "To lead" never means "to win". You can be leading during the season,
>> but at the end of the season you either won or you didn't.
>>
>> You can lead a statistical category at the end of a season, however,
>> unless leading a statistic wins something. For example, you can lead the
>> league in hitting, but then you win the batting crown...
>>
>> DanG
>>
>> On 5/29/2010 2:57 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>>
>>
>>> ...
>>> Now, what does one do when (s)he (it, if team, I suppose) finishes ahead
>>> of the rest of the table at the end of the season? Maybe I am splitting
>>> hairs here, but, it seems to me, the verb has evolved into "to win" or,
>>> if no actual winning is involved, to finish ahead of others.
>>>
>>> http://bit.ly/9jMkSp
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Gomez, who entered camp after becoming the first American player to
>>>> *lead* a foreign league in scoring when he scored 10 goals for Puebla
>>>> in Mexico, recorded his first goal for the full team against the Czechs.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> It's not that Gomez was /ahead/ of other players in scoring some time
>>> during the season--he /finished/ the season as the top scorer in the
>>> league. This particular variation does not strike me as unusual.
>>>
>>>         VS-)
>>>
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