[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

RE: Early Draft Review: XQuery for Java (JSR 225)

• To: "Michael Kay" <michael.h.kay@n...>, "'John Cowan'" <jcowan@r...>
• Subject: RE: Early Draft Review: XQuery for Java (JSR 225)
• From: tpassin@c...
• Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 18:58:41 +0000
• Cc: <xml-dev@l...>

Michael Kay wrote -

> No, I don't think so. Moot as a meeting or assembly to debate matters of
> importance is Anglo-Saxon; hence Tolkein's Entmoot. And it is the only
> meaning you will ever hear in ordinary conversation this side of the
> Atlantic (I can't speak for specialist legal jargon). If someone says in a
> meeting that something is "a moot point", it means that there are arguments
> both ways. Often it's a polite way of saying "I disagree". In a UK meeting,
> the phrase is used to open a debate on the issue, in a US meeting, it's used
> to close it.

As an American, I am only used to the one usage that Mike mentions.  I looked up the word, in an online 1913 Webster's dictionary, and it had one definition that matches the way I know it to be used (over here in the US, that is) -

	3.	To render inconsequential, as having no effect on the practical outcome; to render academic;

BTW, has anyone seen the new-ish "Mooter" search site (www.mooter.com)?  They explain how thay came by their name at http://www.mooter.com/corp.  It says

" We wanted a name that implied that an answer for one person is NOT necessarily a satisfactory answer for another person.".

Cheers,

Tom P


> > You've got a hold of the right stick, but at the wrong end, 
> > unfortunately.
> > As so often, the Americans are the conservatives, not the innovators.
> 
> No, I don't think so. Moot as a meeting or assembly to debate matters of
> importance is Anglo-Saxon; hence Tolkein's Entmoot. And it is the only
> meaning you will ever hear in ordinary conversation this side of the
> Atlantic (I can't speak for specialist legal jargon). If someone says in a
> meeting that something is "a moot point", it means that there are arguments
> both ways. Often it's a polite way of saying "I disagree". In a UK meeting,
> the phrase is used to open a debate on the issue, in a US meeting, it's used
> to close it.
> 
> I've become familiar with the American usage through spending too much time
> at US-dominated W3C meetings (should they change the name?) but it still
> throws me occasionally when I read it without an American accent.
> 
> Michael Kay
> 
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> The xml-dev list is sponsored by XML.org <http://www.xml.org>, an
> initiative of OASIS <http://www.oasis-open.org>
> 
> The list archives are at http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/
> 
> To subscribe or unsubscribe from this list use the subscription
> manager: <http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/index.php>
> 

• Prev by Date: RE: Early Draft Review: XQuery for Java (JSR 225)
• Next by Date: ANN: New XML Differencing, Updated XML Mapping in Stylus Studio 5.3
• Previous by thread: RE: Early Draft Review: XQuery for Java (JSR 225)
• Next by thread: RE: Early Draft Review: XQuery for Java (JSR 225)
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread