What does the word "moot" mean? Your point is moot. That's a moot point.
Does it mean that the point is debatable?
Or does it mean that the point is settled?
If I say, when it comes to climate change, it's a moot point. What am I saying? That climate change is a done deal, or that climate change is up for debate?
I'm asking because I looked the word up and it says that what it means is that the point is not settled, that it is up for debate. A "moot" was once a place for a debate, an assembly, or it was the debate itself. Now it's just used in "moot point" or "that is moot".
But I'd swear it meant the opposite. That a point that was moot was a point that was settled, or at the least *not* up for debate.
What do you think the word meant?
So... I kept looking and found an explanation. The first definition I found wasn't the American one, apparently. :)
16 comments:
Well. That explains *that* !
And well done, Synova.
I always thought it meant that the point was irrelevant, whether settled or not. That seems to be how it's usually used.
And "climate change" is an excellent example of a moot point, because it's beyond our ability to solve, technically, economically or politically. It's the "give peace a chance" of our time, except that at least peace is clearly preferable to war, whereas a cooler climate is not necessarily better.
It means it is like a cow's opinion.
More seriously, I like bago's example and have often said something similar when asked about global warming. Doesn't matter if it is happening or not, nobody's going to make the human race stop burning fossil fuels.
Put simply it's an opinion not a fact.
My understanding of moot is very similar to this wikipedia article on mootness.
I always thought it meant the point was irrelevant, but I am American born and bred. Does this mean that American colonial lawyers were so stupid they took a legal term to mean the exact opposite of what English lawyers meant? Or we're they just so gosh darned contrary?
I'm still trying to get past the word "mote."
I get stuck on it, every time.
I really dig Sinatra's version of Fly Me To The Moot.
It means "No longer relevant."
Well, I always thought moot meant settled, but the dictionary says the opposite, i.e. debatable. So is a state of confusion moot?
as in that whatever the Nixon administration had in mind when they established the EPA is a moot point with regard to its operations today, 40 years later.
Without looking up. My feeling is that moot means that the point is unable to be debated. Not that it isn't a point worthy of debate. Not that the debate is settled. It is that there is not enough information or that it is not the correct time and place to debate the point. Not up for debate as Synova indicated
It is moot.
Usage Note: As an adjective moot has come to be widely used to mean “no longer important, irrelevant,” as in It's a purely moot question which corporation you make your rent check out to; Brown will get the money in either case. This usage may be originally the result of a misinterpretation of its legal sense in phrases such as a moot question. A number of critics have objected to this use, but it was accepted by 59 percent of the Usage Panel in the sentence The nominee himself chastised the White House for failing to do more to support him, but his concerns became moot when a number of Republicans announced that they, too, would oppose the nomination.
Excerpted from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition Copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V., further reproduction and distribution restricted in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved.
A mote denotes the liquid note that flashes in the eye;
'Tis moot as to the meaning, yet oft makes lovers sigh.
I thought moot was the sound a cow with a speech impediment made.
"International" meaning - assholes. They mean British or Commonwealth usage. And if you ask me, the British usage is frankly stupid. There's a perfectly serviceable word for what they mean by that usage, and that word is "debatable". You can't get at the American meaning in less than a phrase - "besides the point" gets closest to the meaning, but it also encompasses "irrelevant" without actually being synonymous with "irrelevant". Or, to quote our former, feckless Secretary of State: "at this point, what difference does it make?"
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