Grammar Moses: The point is probably moot

Opinion Page Editor Jim Slusher told me of a recent conversation he had with regular guest columnist Keith Peterson regarding Peterson's use of "moot."

Although Keith offered a couple of alternatives, Jim decided to keep it in "on the theory that sometimes it's interesting to readers to see a new word or a word correctly used in an unfamiliar way, even if at first it might send them running to the dictionary."

I think most people who read a newspaper do so to learn something. At least I would hope so. I support Jim's thinking. In fact, that's the bedrock assumption of the column you're reading right now. If there is room for "Grammar Moses" in the newspaper, there is room for "moot" in an opinion column.

Did I mention Keith used "moot" as a verb? I'll bet you didn't see that coming.

"Congress began funding highways in 1916," he wrote. "Various plans for a national system were mooted, but the Great Depression and the Second World War put those on hold."

I guess most people are familiar with the phrase "the point is moot," meaning it has lost its significance.

You can thank pop star Rick Springfield for popularizing that definition in his 1981 megahit, "Jessie's Girl."

The line is: "I want to tell her that I love her, but the point is probably moot."

Rick liked to throw around an obscure word in his lyrics now and then, which probably made a generation of teenage girls think he was as erudite as he was pretty.

Until then, the primary definition of "moot" was "debatable" or "disputed."

The pedants had a field day with that. How dare a popular musician pollute young ears with a secondary definition!

Clearly, it is now the primary use of the word.

As for Keith's use of "mooted," I agree it's rather arcane but perfectly legitimate. To "moot" something is to bring it up for discussion.

Creative

I've heard a lot of complaints about the trend of turning verbs into nouns and nouns into verbs.

Now, a complaint about turning adjectives into nouns.

"It grates to hear a person called 'a creative,' when 'creative' is such a striking adjective and 'creator' is already a perfectly good noun," writes Leah Goodman. "I consulted Merriam-Webster and saw 'creative' listed as a noun for 'one who is creative,' so I may have lost that argument. But far worse is when I hear someone on a reality TV show say that they're working on 'the creative' instead of using the word 'creativity' or saying they are 'being creative' or 'creating something.'"

This is an example of what I like to call industry shorthand. Within an industry, we often drop words that are used so often they're unnecessary.

In the milieu of advertising, you have the sales side and you have the creative side. Copywriters and artists constitute the "creatives" in the group. They produce the "creative."

I seem to recall Don Draper in "Mad Men" inquiring about the status of "the creative" from an ad campaign, meaning the messaging in this case and not the people who created it.

That works better in the case of an immersive experience such as "Mad Men," in which you learn as much about the industry as you do about the characters who work in it.

In that context, you know what "a creative" is.

But I'm not fond of its use without that kind of context. When someone tells you he or she is "a creative," do you have any idea what that person does? I'm equally annoyed when someone purports to be a "content creator."

Content of what? A cereal box? A news release? A novel?

Even within the journalism industry it's not clear.

Better to be specific, if you ask me.

Write carefully!

• Jim Baumann is vice president/executive editor of the Daily Herald. You can buy Jim's book, "Grammar Moses: A humorous guide two grammar and usage," at

grammarmosesthebook.com. Write him at jbaumann@dailyherald.com and put "Grammar Moses" in the subject line. You also can friend or follow Jim at facebook.com/baumannjim.