She tabled the discussion of a 'moot point'
If a suggestion was mooted, what happened to it? What about if it鈥檚 tabled? These are contronyms 鈥� words with opposite meanings 鈥� in American and British English, and spread confusion wherever they travel.聽
In the United States, we most often use moot as an adjective, as part of the phrase moot point. Such a point is 鈥渄eprived of practical significance, made abstract or purely academic,鈥� according to Merriam-Webster.聽If you have a Ph.D. in the humanities and want to teach at the university level, you have to go where you get a job 鈥� where you鈥檇 like to live is a moot point. In Britain, though, moot means 鈥渙pen to question, debatable.鈥� If your spouse says that the question of whether to move to London is 鈥渕oot,鈥� you鈥檒l need to talk about it, unless he or she is American, in which case you don鈥檛.聽
Things get even more confusing when moot is used as a verb. If an American moots the idea of moving to California, she鈥檚 brought it up for discussion, not dismissed it as irrelevant. Moot means 鈥渢o raise or bring forward (a point, question, candidate, etc.)鈥� in the U.S., and in Britain. Or at least it used to. This sense is becoming less common in American English, according to 鈥淕arner鈥檚 Modern English Usage鈥� by Bryan Garner, as the verb comes to share the American adjective鈥檚 meaning. Especially in the U.S. legal system, moot can mean 鈥渢o render ... of no practical significance,鈥� as in 鈥渢he plaintiff died and mooted his case.鈥�
Moot sounds silly, but it originally represented a solemn thing. In Old English, a moot (or mot, or gemot) was a judicial or legislative assembly. The witenagemot (the 鈥渕oot鈥� of wise men), for example, was the parliament of Anglo-Saxon England. And just like parliament (from the French parler, 鈥渢o talk鈥�), moots involved 鈥渁rgument, disputation; discussion,鈥� according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
Lawyers took the word over in the 16th century, and it came to refer to the discussion of a hypothetical case for law students鈥� practice. British and American law students still participate in moot courts, perhaps aided by books like Oxford University Press鈥� 鈥淗ow to Moot: A Student Guide to Mooting.鈥� Here we can see how the British and American senses diverged. Such a discussion is of 鈥渘o practical significance,鈥� and that鈥檚 the sense American English seems to prefer, whether using moot as an adjective or (increasingly) as a verb.聽
In a similar fashion, a British person who tables an issue will 鈥減lace [it] on the agenda鈥�; an American who tables that same issue has taken it out of consideration, indefinitely. Why does to table mean put it 鈥渙n the table鈥� to the British and take it 鈥渙ff the table鈥� to Americans? That鈥檚 a moot point, I guess.聽 聽
