Philosophy HUH?

Oh man…talk about stress. This semester, I’m taking 2 Level 3 Philosophy modules and 3 Level 2 ones. Now, Level 3 modules are insanely difficult – and by insanely, I mean insanely. This is the kind of reading that gives philosophy a bad name.

Let me give you an example from my Moral Philosophy forum:

This student asks, “Dear Sir,
 
Just stepped out of the tutorial, still having problems with the Embeddedness Problem. Doesn’t the problem apply to all expressive statements, and not just expressivist moral statements? If so, doesn’t the problem just show that modus ponens is incompatible with the use of expressive language in either its antecedent or its consequent, and therefore does not outline a problem with the fabric of expressivist moral beliefs, but rather questions its presentation? Consider the example below:
 
1)      If Brazil scores a goal, Italians will be upset.
2)      Brazil scores a goal.
3)      Italians will be upset.
 
The above, if put in an expressive form (for a Brazilian soccer fan):
 
1)      If ‘hurrah’ for Brazil, then ‘boo hoo’ for Italians.
2)      ‘Hurrah’ for Brazil.
3)      ‘Boo hoo’ for Italians.
 
The support one has of Brazilians is not grounded in morality of any sort, and yet this is also an instance of modus ponens working with a statement without a truth value (2). Therefore doesn’t the embeddedness problem just point to problems with the mechanisms of expressivist morality rather than its content?
 
Thank you for your attention.”

The nice lecturer replies, “Though addressed to me, of course, anyone can respond.  But, very quickly, I'll just note that there isn't any reason to give a non-cognitivist reading to any of the statements in your argument.  Why have you so translated them?  According to non-cognitivists, a moral claim, like "truth-telling is right" just means (something like) "yea! for truth-telling"; but surely "Brazil scores a goal" doesn't mean "yea! for Brazil".  It means that someone on the team got the ball to go into the net.  It's an ordinary descriptive proposition about something in the world.  There's no problem with ordinary descriptive propositions being embedded within complex statements or within some logical operator, only with moral claims, which, according to non-cognitivists, aren't assertions.
I'll review the problem again in the beginning of Friday's lecture.  Bring questions!”

I say, “huh?”
If anyone out there understands either the question or the reply, PLEASE explain it to me, because I can envision a very difficult semester ahead indeed.