| 词组 | moot |
| 释义 | moot The adjective moot has a sense that means "open to question; debatable" (and a related sense "disputed") which causes no real concern amongst prescribes of usage. The sense that means "deprived of practical significance; purely academic," however, makes a few of them uneasy. They know it originated in legal use, and they are reluctant to see the shift into general use as acceptable. • It is mistakenly used to signify that something is beyond argument, that there is no point in arguing the question, except in the technical legal sense that something moot is something previously decided — Bremner 1980 • Sometimes misused in the sense hypothetical or academic. This is a technical sense and out of place except in legal contexts ..., as the examples in Webster show —Copperud 1980 By "Webster" Copperud means Webster's Third, which illustrates this sense of moot with two citations about legal matters. In the late 1950s, when Webster's Third was being edited, legal citations for this sense in our files outnumbered nonlegal ones by about four to one. Since then, this sense has become as firmly fixed in general English as it is in legal English. • Whether this type of proliferation is good or bad is a moot question. The facts of life are that it exists — Representative Frank Thompson, quoted in American School Board Jour., September 1968 • Even inflation cannot justify charging $20 for a moderately-sized book. In Nash's case this complaint is moot, for his book would be expensive at any price —Philip Rosenberg, N. Y. Times Book Rev., 20 June 1976 • ... whether the Iranian government can free the hostages from the militants. But we have made the question moot, for the government's best interest is served by keeping them —Walter Guzzardi, Jr., Fortune, 2 June 1980 |
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