Re: Semantic(s)

[Ned Bedinger <doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com>]

Combs, Richard wrote:

> The American Heritage Dictionary (4th edition) 
<snip> adds this usage note:
> 
> The adjective moot is originally a legal term 
> going back to the mid-16th century. It derives
> from the noun moot, in its sense of a hypothetical ...


Awesome. Alas, the free Merriam Webster (m-w.com) doesn't even list that
noun definition. Those snorkel-fishing Angle Saxons must have devised
these ambuscades with great foresight and expertise, else how to explain
the uncanny regularity with which native English speakers find ourselves
in crossfires of colliding polysemy, dialect, and cetera?

Argh.  There are only two kinds of hunters. Those who've been captured
by the game, and those that will be.

Ned Bedinger
doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com






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