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lob
DCHP-2 (Jun 2016)
Spelling variants:lob ball, lob-ball
1v. — especially Politics
to ask a question, usually an easy one.
Type: 5. Frequency — This meaning is likely derived from the physical meaning of the verb lob, meaning 'to throw (a ball) with a slow, underarm movement' or 'a slow, underarm throw'. The nature of lob ball questions and throws make them very easy to answer or hit. The term is used ten times as frequently in Canada as in the US (see Chart 1).
Quotations
1978
In the meantime, if you feel like lobbing a few rhetorical neutron bombs in the direction of BIll Davis, be my guest.
1984
Mr. Turner also lobbed a few of the Prime Minister's past promises at him, including a statement Mr. Mulroney made in Prince Albert, Sask., just before the campaign began. He told reporters then that thousands of jobs would be created overnight by the election of a Conservative Government.
1989
As one [EPAC member] said, "let's just hope this isn't just another glorified EPAC tea party," where politicians of all persuasions will be lobbed soft ones all night, all in the name of reasonableness and general public relations. More next week.
1999
"Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague in the Conservative Party for his comments," she began, opening her comments about the employment insurance program and preparing to lob a question back to Mr. Brison to allow him to continue talking, a trick normally reserved for MPs of the same party.
2n. & adj. — especially Politics
an easy question, usually asked expressly to make the respondent look capable and coherent.
Type: 5. Frequency — See meaning 1.
See also COD-2, s.v. "lob" (2), which is marked "Cdn".
See also COD-2, s.v. "lob" (2), which is marked "Cdn".
Quotations
1985
The first question at Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's press conference yesterday was a soft lob about his personal feelings on the week's events that the Prime Minister easily fielded by telling a baseball story.
1995
Throughout Ms. Sutherland's planning, she'll work with MPs, trying to get the phrasing of their question right, trying to determine how to balance questioning between the rhetorical punches, which are intended to get a "clip" on the news, and between the more substantial questions, intended to get an answer. "I like questions that ask a specific question and don't do that lob-ball question," Ms. Sutherland says. "But then again, sometimes you have those rhetorical questions, when you don't really expect to get an answer, and it's the rhetoric that counts more."
2001
Speaking of the "slippery slope" and using hateful speech to create "anxiety and fear," let us fast-forward to just last week in the Commons when Fry was asked a lob-ball setup question from a backbench Liberal MP designed to promote the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
2006
Then, the soft lob question of the day from British Columbia Conservative MP Richard Harris: "Mr. Speaker, for years we asked the former Liberal government to acknowledge B.C.'s pine beetle crisis and for years it clearly demonstrated that it just did not care. But our new Prime Minister did care, and the Conservative government cares and the Minister of Natural Resources cares.... I would like to ask the Minister of Natural Resources just what benefits British Columbia is going to see from this fantastic pine beetle funding."
2013
Shortly after his appointment, that was Duffy helping to turn an economic update from the government into a game show in Cambridge, Ont., - not the House of Commons - coaxing voters through a series of adoring lob ball questions for the prime minister, a role he has reprised many times.
2015
The opening question to him was a lob: How does he feel about the off-season roster changes engineered by general manager Alex Anthopoulos?
References
- COD-2
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