This Week: Contranyms on the Podcast + mute point/moot point

mute point/moot point
“Moot” is a very old word related to “meeting,” specifically a meeting where serious matters are discussed. Oddly enough, a moot point can be a point worth discussing at a meeting (or in court)—an unresolved question—or it can be the opposite: a point already settled and not worth discussing further. At any rate, “mute point” is simply wrong, as is the less common “mood point.”


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On the podcast this week we talk about words that mean two very different things at once.