Talk:Mootness

message: Needed: what states allow appeals by prosecution after an acquittal in a criminal case? Ellsworth 21:29, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Needed

message: The page is a good one and a valuable addition to WP.  However, I take issue with the title.  The word "mootness" is a neologism that has been back-formed from the notion of a "moot point", i.e. the idea (in law) that any further action would be entirely hypothetical, and therefore irrelevant.  Finally, the phrase "moot court" is commonly used and understood in U.S. (as well as British) legal jargon.  The verb form "to moot an idea", while correct in U.S. English, is quite uncommon.
While the word "mootness" does occur (e.g.) in Arizonans for Official English et al. v. Arizona et al. (520 U.S. 43 (1997)) (how ironic) written by Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg, and other cases (e.g.) Hicklin v. Orbeck (437 U.S. 518 (1978)) misuse the verb form of "moot", that does not establish the correctness of the word "mootness".  If we go this direction, soon we'll have "mootfull", "mootitude", and "mootilicious".
I would suggest the page be renamed "Moot (Legal Jargon)" or "Moot Case (Legal)".  You can then do a #REDIRECT from "mootness" and (?) everyone will be happy. -- Gnetwerker 18:10, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree. "Mootness" appears in 450+ Supreme Court opinions and thousands of circuit court opinions. 250,000+ Google hits. At some point, a new word just becomes a word. Mootness is there. Amcfreely 18:26, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Given the several-month lag time between my posting and your comments, I would say the resounding Wikipedia consensus is "don't care", which defaults to leaving it as it is.  I would argue with you, however, that a word in the jargon of a field (whether legal or computing) stays jargon unless and until it enters the language more generally.  I don't think "mootness" has done so, unlike blog (e.g.). -- Gnetwerker 19:15, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  All News file on lexis: 1998 hits. I disagree that a word is jargon just because it's specialized. You would never hear "polymerize" in conversation, but that doesn't make a neologism. Amcfreely 02:32, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A neologism is not the same as jargon.  Neologisms last for decades or even centuries within their specialist domain without breaking into the general lexicon.  If I say "that problem is Order 'n'", that is computer science jargon, and has not broken into the general language, whereas (e.g.) "he's a black hole for information" is an example of a jargon word that crossed over.  I don't know what the test one way or the other would be, but I am sure that 2000 google hits isn't it. -- Gnetwerker 05:50, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  There were 250,000 Google hits. The 1,998 hits was the number of times "mootness" had been used in published news sources in the Lexis All News database. Amcfreely 06:57, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

text: What a chutzpah, Gnet. I did coin the word "mootylicious"—and you not only use it freely, but you even misspell it... --JackLumber 22:36, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Aaarrggh -- a Jack Attack (tm)!  My most humble obeisance, I stand in awe of your most impressively big ... dictionary :-) -- Gnetwerker 00:37, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mootness 

message: This article cites several examples.  The examples, are in proper legal citation form; however, they do not tell a non-lawyer how to find the material other than by referring one to another Wikipedia article, which is not in accordance with the Verifiability Policy, in particular Self-Published Sources: "Articles and posts on Wikipedia or other open wikis should never be used as third-party sources."  Further, they do not stand for the proposition, but only for examples of it.  Supporting a Wikipedia article is far different from supporting a legal argument and using example cases smacks of Original Research, in particular Synthesis and possibly even citing oneself.  Citation to law treatises would be more appropriate for Wikipedia than citation to an example case.  Further, many items have no citation whatsoever.  For example: 
In the U.S. federal judicial system, a moot case must be dismissed. The reason for this is that Article Three of the United States Constitution limits the jurisdiction of all federal courts to "cases and controversies". Thus, a civil action or appeal in which the court's decision will not affect the rights of the parties is beyond the power of the court to decide.
I stand by my tag.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 01:48, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Regarding the References 

message: The article currently claims, Due to the relatively uncommon usage of the word moot, this is sometimes rendered as the malapropism "mute point".
I don't think this is properly a malapropism. To the extent that "mute" and "moot" are homophones, it seems clearly not. Malapropisms are primarily about speech and so the substitution of an incorrect word has to be more than just spelling the word wrong.
If we say that "mute" and "moot" are pronounced differently (arguably), they still seem too close to each other to qualify as malapropisms. It's not like "electrical" vs. "electoral" or "reprehend" for "apprehend." It'd be my intention to remove the malapropism claim. jhawkinson (talk) 17:56, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree that it is not a malapropism, but there must be a name for this kind of faux pas. Rather than just delete it, could you be persuaded to do a word search and then replace it? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 18:20, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think there is a name, it's just wrong. This particular error does not occur in English very often. One could call them "misplaced homophones" or "improper homophones" or even "errant heterographs" but none of these terms is standardized. jhawkinson (talk) 18:57, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

text:  jhawkinson (talk) 17:20, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  mute not a malapropism 

message: A move like this should have been discussed prior to doing it, it is not uncontroversial. Yes, the concept of "mootness" has a particular meaning in US law that is not (afik) used in any other jurisdiction. In fact the term is very little used outside the US. The effect of this move is to change a simple name to a complicated one for the large majority of users, mostly in the US. While (as a British editor) I regularly challenge US assumptions being made on en.wiki, this one goes to the opposite extreme. I really don't see any justification for this change and believe that it should be reverted. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 18:01, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  yes, I had guessed as much. But had you proposed your planned change here first, you might have been advised that the term is very little used outside the USA and that there is no need for change. Look in the article, the amount of non-US material is very limited. So there was really no need to create a fork just for US readers who you would now deprive of awareness of how the rest of the world understands the term. IMO, the article was already proportionately globalised: most of the article reflected US practice because that is where the term is most used. Sufficient and appropriate recognition was given to usages elsewhere. I suggest strongly that you should revert this move. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:59, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inappropriate page move.