Winning

[electricdruid]

I've been having a little debate with my mother for, oh, about 22 years that I'm hoping you have some insight on. She is a German native who moved to the US 25 years ago. I was raised in New Jersey.

When she is watching soccer (aka football) on television, I will often come in the room and ask: "Who's winning?"

To which she will respond, pointedly:

Comments

[dcseain]

"Who's ahead?" is more common a question among most i know. That said, "Who's winning?" is correct and proper. "Who's leading?" is understandable, but sounds funny to me, and i'm guessing may be literal from the German perhaps.

[hkitsune]

I'm 23, from Texas. I'd say that you can be in the process of winning, but "leading" does strike me also as being correct. I don't think there is any specific issue with the construction, but her interpretation may be a product of her German, rather than anything else. Such a construction is kind of awkward in French, for example, where you would also use the equivalent of "lead".

[otana]

Native British English speaker living in Cali, and I agree with this. "[X team] is in the lead" or "[x team] is ahead" sounds more natural to me, though I wouldn't say winning is incorrect either.

[bemysty]

It very likely is - in German, you usually say "who's leading?/who's ahead?", not "who's winning?"... I can't remember ever having heard any construction with "win".

[reconditarmonia]

Possibly because English uses the present participle a lot more than other languages do .I speak Italian, French, and German - I can't imagine using the "X is winning" construction in any of them, and "X wins" would just be wrong. (Unless it's "X always wins," ie. a different meaning.)

[soypasajera]

I think both are correct, though, I use winning more often and I follow Mexican soccer and read the Spanish websites and they use "derrotando" often, meaning beating or ganando, again, winning. So I'd think both are correct

[mamculuna]

Logically, I agree, but I think most American native speakers would use "winning" to mean what she means by "leading."

[thesparque]

Anyone who calls it incorrect is winning the Nonsensical Pedantry Championship by at least 100 points.

[thesparque]

My less sarcastic answer is that if it is said a certain way and there isn't even the likelihood of misunderstanding, there's nothing incorrect about it. Especially something like this.

[chinesestudio]

Ding ding ding.