reversal or just muddle?

[Joel S. Berson]

At 3/10/2013 06:10 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>I think "reduce the prospect" is correct.
>
>I also think the "needed" should be "will need".

I would say "reduce the prospect that the Wildcats would need to win
the SEC tournament in Nashville to secure a bid." "Prospect" leads me
to a conditional.  (Actually, I'd say "chance".)

Joel


>DanG
>
>
>On Sat, Mar 9, 2013 at 7:05 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      reversal or just muddle?
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Here's a sentence from an ESPN report on the Kentucky-Florida basketball
> > game that Kentucky won. The context is that Kentucky has had a mediocre
> > season and there was some speculation that they may not be selected for
> > the NCAA Tournament and would have to win the conference tournament to
> > qualify. The rest of the piece appears to suggest that this is no longer
> > the case and all that UK needs to do is perhaps win its first game in
> > the conference tournament. Then you get to this point:
> >
> > http://goo.gl/Qh7nP
> > > Kentucky's win ended a two-game losing streak and increased the
> > > prospect that the Wildcats needed to win the SEC tournament in
> > > Nashville to secure a bid.
> >
> > The choice of "increased the prospect" is what makes it interesting.
> > "Decrease the prospect" doesn't make sense to me--would not be a
> > legitimate expression for me. Perhaps "reduce the prospect". But this is
> > a "prospect" of a speculative negative outcome, so the whole "prospect"
> > theme would not make sense. An alternative would be something like "the
> > win reduced the pressure on the UK team to win the SEC tournament to
> > qualify, as they will likely qualify on lesser accomplishments". But
> > that's a complete rewrite of what's there, not merely a correction.
> >
> >      VS-)
> >
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> >
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