[Ads-l] Historically Interesting Antedating of "Mootness"

[mr_peter_morris@outlook.com]

Interdating:

https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Vanity_Fair/1cM-AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=mootness&pg=RA9-PA21&printsec=frontcover

August 1919
Article  in Vanity Fair written by P.G. Wodehouse.

"In this age of moot points - some mooter than others, others possibly a
shade less moot than some - perhaps the mootest point of any is, What
is happening to the drama now that July 1st is behind us? This surely is
a point of which the mootness cannot escape the most ivory-domed.  It
is practically Old Man Moot in person. "


Does OED have entries for "mooter" and "mootest"?



------ Original Message ------
From "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
To ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Date 08/07/2024 22:13:27
Subject Historically Interesting Antedating of "Mootness"

>mootness (OED 1922)
>
>1896 Law Notes​ Jan. 32/2 (HeinOnline)
>
>Some of the speakers doubted the "mootness" of the "Moot."
>
>NOTE: This is an historically interesting antedating of the OED.  What was probably the first computer-assisted antedating of all time, found by me in 1978 or 1979, was an antedating of the word "mootness" from 1946 to 1940.
>
>Fred Shapiro
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org