Moot Point

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Kate in Indianapolis.

Kate in Indianapolis.

What you doing?

I have a word that’s been a bone of contention between a friend of mine and I.

And the word is moot.

Wait, before you go any further, is there money on the line?

No, there is not.

Dinner, respect?

Perhaps respect, self-confidence, those sorts of things.

Does the loser, like, have to be a slave to the other person for a day or something?

We’ll see how it turns out, and then we’ll determine that.

I see.

Make the rules up later.

Good plan.

Good plan, Gabe.

Be adaptable.

Yeah, right.

Okay.

So the word is moot, M-O-O-T.

Correct.

Well, it’s been a standing debate for many years, actually.

This friend is a musician, and when he uses what I think should be the word moot,

He uses mute, M-U-T-E, in its place.

-huh. Is he a trumpet player? Does he stick a moot in his trumpet or something?

No, in fact, he’s a piano player.

He’s a piano player.

He’s a piano player.

Okay.

He uses the mute pedal.

Yes, exactly.

He said, well, you know, it makes the sound less.

And so it makes sense to me that in order for it to be an unimportant sort of thing

Or a less important thing.

It’s a muted point.

Okay.

And what do you say, Kate?

I’m thinking that he’s completely wrong,

That moot is the word.

And I even made up a little sentence to illustrate the point.

Let’s hear it.

Although the staff was quite perturbed,

The fact that the trumpeter had forgotten to bring his mute

Was a moot point,

As most of the residents of the retirement home were nearly deaf.

That is very good.

You’ve used the word accurately in this sense.

So the short version of this is, you’re the winner.

Yay!

Yay!

Congratulations.

It is not pronounced.

In that case, I think the slavery thing should be enacted.

Well, I hope you’ll be benevolent in your…

Maybe you can make him serenade you or something.

Let’s just itemize all the ways your friend is wrong here.

It’s not mute.

It’s not mute.

It’s moot.

It is moot.

And it has nothing to do with muting a musical instrument at all.

Okay.

And it’s not about that at all.

It basically means, it’s an adjective that means irrelevant or insignificant.

This is largely the North American usage, however.

There is a British usage, also used in the United States, so there’s two meanings that still don’t apply to what she’s talking about that means debatable or in dispute or unresolvable.

But the use you’re talking about here is irrelevant or insignificant.

Great.

All right.

Well, I shall call him up and inform him of his new status.

Yeah.

This is one of those things that’s, it is indisputable that your friend is wrong, right?

There’s no argument here.

Indisputable.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

All right.

You sound like you’re glowing from being right.

I am.

I am.

Absolutely.

The beauty that comes from being victorious.

I’m just a couple degrees warmer.

All right.

Thank you for your call, Kate.

Thank you.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

I love this. This reminds me of an episode of Friends, Martha.

Did you ever watch that when it was on?

Every once in a while.

Joey Tribbiani in this show is kind of a lovable goofball.

He’s not that bright, but he means well.

And there’s one episode where he says something like, does he like you?

All right. Because if he doesn’t like you, this is all a moo point.

And Rachel, played by Jennifer Aniston, says a moo point.

And he says something like, yeah, it’s like a cow’s opinion.

It doesn’t matter. Moo.

A moo point.

A moo point.

That’s one of the funniest things.

I never watched the show that great, but they were running that particular bit as a promo for a while,

And it cracked me up every time.

Oh, man.

We should try to find it on YouTube or something.

Yeah, we’ll post it on the website, as always.

All right.

If you’re having a debate about a word, give us a call.

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