common v. uncommon - a moot point

[Tom44]

I don't know why I bother - I never win these arguments.  For that matter, I do not know/understand the criteria that Alan uses to determine the commonality of word usage.  Anyway, a few days ago, Moot was a common word.  I agree.  But in the process of flailing around I stuck in Mooting and it was a common word.  My jaw nearly hit the floor.  Mooting is the process of arguing in Moot Court in law school.  I have a very hard time believing anyone not in the legal profession (at least in this country - maybe across the pond?) would know that word.  It was a miracle I got it, but I think it was unfair.  IMO mooting should be a rare word.

[mkenuk]

I'm inclined to agree with Tom that mooting is probably unfamiliar to most solvers.
I think the adjective moot (as in 'a moot point') should be common and I think the past participle of the verb ('mooted') has long been a favourite of those writing minuted reports of meeting. 'It was mooted that....' and 'It has been mooted that....' will hardly be unfamiliar to anyone who has ever served on a committee of any kind.

But mooting? - I think not.

The other time I have come across the word moot is in the old song 'Linden Lea', usually attributed to Vaughan Williams, although someone else wrote the words.

'Within the woodlands, flow'ry gladed,
By the oak trees' mossy moot....'

A song that takes me back many years to my time in the school choir.
Our teacher explained that a 'moot' was a meeting place, an early kind of local parliament, where the villagers would gather in days gone by,
Presumably this is the origin of the 'Moot Court' which Tom refers to, but I guess the word long predates modern law schools..

[Jacki]

Having watched the British series "The Split" centred around lawyers with "Moot Corner" and my son doing law school with Moot Square I did get mooting but agree it's probably not a common word.

[les303]

Whenever i come across a game with the letters " i , n , g " available i try what i consider to be all reasonable combinations but invariably i will miss a couple of words ending in the "ing"
So when i am running out of options i will revisit the " ing " theme & try combinations that don't at first appearance seem to be acceptable & that is the only way that i managed to find mooting in the game that Tom is referring to.

[Alan W]

Mooting is certainly used much less frequently than either moot or mooted.

From the 14-billion-word iWeb corpus of online texts we get this:



From the slightly smaller News on the Web corpus of news articles we get:



Moot and mooted can be used in a variety of senses, but mainly as described by mkenuk. Mooting is also used in different senses. As well as the law school usage you mention, Tom, it can be used to mean "suggesting", as in this sentence from an editorial in the Nigerian newspaper The Sun on 9 November:

Arising from these constitutional provisions, we enjoin the government to stop mooting the idea of regulating the social media or trying to control the media.

I agree that mooting is not a common word, and it will be treated as rare from now on.

[Tom44]

Thank you, Alan.