Is A Mute Point Really Quiet?
July 28th 2011 06:29
Ah, those wacky professional networking folks. They're at it again:
"...and then the statement becomes a mute point."
So I suppose that means it's really quiet?
Let's be charitable and say this is one of those spell-check mistakes where the person typed something badly and the spell-check offered two words: "mute" and "moot." Which one looks more like a real word, at least to writers in the US?
Right. "Mute." Which leads you to the following train of thought:
What the heck is a "moot" anyway? The spell checker must be going crazy. Note to self: take the computer back to the shop and get those nasty viruses reamed out of there.
Sorry, folks. "Moot" is a real word, and it's the right one here. "A moot point."
OK. Um-m-m...
What the heck is a moot?
(Excuse the faux quotes. I just love to put words in your mouth.)
Anyway, to answer this, I could just refer you to any number of dictionaries, online or otherwise. But that wouldn't be any fun.
Moot, as used in "a moot point," is being used as an adjective that modifies "point." Let's hold off on that for a minute and come back to it. To understand this, we have to look at the noun use first.
Right. What the heck is a moot?
A "moot" (noun) was originally a gathering of townspeople who came together for the purpose of making joint decisions—like a town meeting. The word, my research tells me, came from a German word for meeting. And I have to give credit here—all of this is from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary at:
Really Long Link
"Moot" soon acquired an adjective use as well, which was to say that something was debatable or disputed. This makes sense. If some idea came from the moot—the meeting—then it was a moot point.
Then—some centuries later—moot came to mean something different. It came to mean something that had been bypassed by circumstances and was now no longer significant. Which is what "a moot point" means today.
Why did the word change its meaning that way? Who knows? Maybe people came to feel that the town meetings were useless and therefore, any ideas that came from them were useless, too. But this is just a guess.
"...and then the statement becomes a mute point."
So I suppose that means it's really quiet?
Let's be charitable and say this is one of those spell-check mistakes where the person typed something badly and the spell-check offered two words: "mute" and "moot." Which one looks more like a real word, at least to writers in the US?
Right. "Mute." Which leads you to the following train of thought:
What the heck is a "moot" anyway? The spell checker must be going crazy. Note to self: take the computer back to the shop and get those nasty viruses reamed out of there.
Sorry, folks. "Moot" is a real word, and it's the right one here. "A moot point."
OK. Um-m-m...
What the heck is a moot?
(Excuse the faux quotes. I just love to put words in your mouth.)
Anyway, to answer this, I could just refer you to any number of dictionaries, online or otherwise. But that wouldn't be any fun.
Moot, as used in "a moot point," is being used as an adjective that modifies "point." Let's hold off on that for a minute and come back to it. To understand this, we have to look at the noun use first.
Right. What the heck is a moot?
A "moot" (noun) was originally a gathering of townspeople who came together for the purpose of making joint decisions—like a town meeting. The word, my research tells me, came from a German word for meeting. And I have to give credit here—all of this is from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary at:
Really Long Link
"Moot" soon acquired an adjective use as well, which was to say that something was debatable or disputed. This makes sense. If some idea came from the moot—the meeting—then it was a moot point.
Then—some centuries later—moot came to mean something different. It came to mean something that had been bypassed by circumstances and was now no longer significant. Which is what "a moot point" means today.
Why did the word change its meaning that way? Who knows? Maybe people came to feel that the town meetings were useless and therefore, any ideas that came from them were useless, too. But this is just a guess.
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