Mute Point vs. Moot Point

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Stephen from Dallas.

Hi, Stephen. How are you doing?

Hello, Stephen.

Very good, thank you. We’re pretty excited to be on today.

My fiancée, Kate, is right next to me.

Oh, okay. Oh, is this a dispute?

It is. It is.

Let’s hear it.

We’re getting ready to be married.

Congratulations.

And when we come to a wedding planning decision, which has been kind of rendered unnecessary by other events that have overtaken it, then I say it’s a mute point, pronouncing M-O-O-T as if it was a homophone of mute, M-U-T-E.

And Kate says I’m just totally wrong and nuts about that.

I say it’s just an alternate pronunciation from where I grew up in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio.

And so we decided to call you all and see which one of us was crazy.

Stephen, did you look it up in a dictionary?

I have not yet, no.

Okay.

They came to us.

Okay.

Well, let’s hear from Kate.

Okay, just a second.

Yes, hello.

Hi, Kate.

Hi.

So is the engagement writing on this? Is this a possible deal breaker?

I don’t think this is a deal breaker, but it’s something we might get harassed about for the next 50 years.

Well, you might have to put silence in his vows.

Yes, that’s true.

Yeah, we were hoping to get the marriage license today, so I don’t think this is a deal breaker.

Oh, okay, good, good.

Does he have his ear to the phone right now?

No, he doesn’t have his ear to the phone.

Should we put both ears to the phone?

Yeah, you put Stephen back on here.

Yeah, here he is.

Hello.

Hi, Stephen.

You know, I don’t know if your vows say love, honor, and obey, but I would say love, honor, and obey your new wife’s grammatical inclinations.

I don’t see any evidence that mute for M-O-O-T is a regional term.

Might be a family pronunciation.

Yeah, it might be a family.

But it’s not a widespread regional pronunciation as far as we can tell.

Yeah, and, you know, if you look it up in Reference Works, it’s moot, moot, moot.

It’s moot.

So what I’m hearing is that I’m going to have to go buy a dozen roses.

That’s all?

That doesn’t seem like nearly enough.

I mean, you’ve just aired your dirty laundry on the national radio program.

There’s a lot more on the line than that, buddy.

You’re going to go get a marriage license.

Well, this is probably good to clear the air now, right?

Yeah, seriously.

Forget the blood tests.

Yeah.

Yeah. How do you feel about that, Stephen?

She’s a translator, and a lot of our friends are translators, so I’m used to getting all of these people that correct everything that you pronounce and say.

So I was hoping that this one was just a regional variation, but I guess not.

I guess it’s just me. I’ll have to change the way I talk.

Let me spin it positively for you. It’s another reason to love her.

That’s right.

There we go.

And vice versa, that you would be open to pronouncing it a different way.

I think it’s lovely.

Also, you need to do something about your dishpan hands.

I know you don’t have them yet, but you will.

Hey, Stephen and Kate, we wish you many, many years of happiness.

A hundred or more.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for calling. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Call us with your language disputes, 877-929-9673.

And if you and your sweetheart are disagreeing about a word, send it an email to words@waywordradio.org.