[Ads-l] Q: "lumping the team ... much chance ..."?

[Laurence Horn]

It’s “lumping” that’s weird here.  The sense, I assume, is essentially

‘’…they [the Giants, because of the imbalance between their strong defense and inconsistent offense] have given observers pause in terms of granting the team tied with [others in having] the fifth-best record in the NFL much chance of doing damage…”

The “give…pause” has the negativity required for “much chance”.  But how “lumping” might mean “granting” I can’t say.  And it’s still pretty clumsy in terms of the syntax.

LH



> On Dec 15, 2016, at 12:18 PM, Joel Berson <berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
> 
> From Yahoo Sports, Eric Edholm, Shutdown Corner, Dec 14, 2016, 12:06 PM:
> 
> The 9-4 New York Giants are a mystery wrapped in an enigma, or something along those lines, and they have given observers a lot of pause in terms of lumping the team tied with the fifth-best record in the NFL much chance of doing damage in the postseason.
> 
> "lumping the team ... much chance of doing damage"?
> 
> Joel
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.americandialect.org&d=CwICaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=uIrjpJLF-HgJ21uzqUMgfmKpencP7chRd0IdeebS2ww&s=jhpJQT1YqcWqHzkCwUUXoMVvU8bkGAMFW56sdEw9L7c&e= 


------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org