> changing "score something 'out of your league'" to, e.g., "meet someone 'out of your league.'" I'm not sure why people see this as so hard to swallow.
The use case for language is this: You have a picture or idea in your brain that needs to be transmitted over ASCII into my brain. The conventional symbol set for this use case are English words. A priori we received a dictionary of words and their meanings that we assume is identical to all parties. Trouble is that it isn't. IF and only IF the goal of BOTH parties is to reproduce the original message with highest possible fidelity, then the receiver will obtain a copy of the transmitter's dictionary, and use the updated definitions to reproduce the transmitter's message.
However if the goal of the receiver is to discredit the transmitter or distract from the point being made, then a great tactic, akin to DNS hijack, is to push onto all receivers an alternative dictionary to the one used by the transmitter. In this case the alterative dictionary elicits outrage, discrediting the transmitter, and hijacking the original discussion.
CNN, for example, their goal is NOT to reproduce with high fidelity what congressman X said, rather, their goal is ___ (insert: make it more entertaining, make it more newsworthy, make it click-bait suitable, keep viewers watching, attract ad dollars, curry political favor, drive their own agenda, etc). In addition to pushing an alternative dictionary, they can reinforce with cutting phrases out of context, using selective historical imagery and video, bringing 'experts' to present their views.
In summary I feel that HG was using an alternative dictionary attack (akin to DNS hijack), to distract from the substantive content in the OP.