First I want to be clear, I'm from the Westminster system, we use the British English in my country of origin, and so I have had a hard time with adapting to American English usage in both writing and speaking. So I was writing an abstract for a paper I'm working on, and I asked my husband to edit it, and we had an argument over my use of moot.
In "Do Television Presidential Debates help inform voters" James B. Lemert (1993) notes that there are arguments supporting and opposing this moot.
Growing up doing debate and watching the high school debate challenge on television, the use of the word moot as a noun is prevalent and normal. I'm not saying that this is right or wrong, but what I really want to know, if this was ever a practice that has since changed to using the term "moot point" over "moot".
So an example would be:
Regarding the moot, "Corporal punishment should be banned in schools", my colleagues and I will prove the affirmative.
Another example in practice: https://youtu.be/_sZ2hnifAKs?t=11m29s
While I came across a previous discussion on the use of the phrase "the point is moot", it was not helpful in exploring the history or additional usage.
I understand that the word is used as an adjective but I learnt "moot" as a noun that can be used as an adjective. What's even more annoying to me, right now, is that the term "moot point" was introduced to my vocabulary through American culture.
Full disclosure, I'm a dyslexic adult who is very conscious of the difference between what I know to be true and what is a simple mechanical mistake. So while I'm struggling personally to grapple with an error, I would like to be reaffirmed that this is a learned error, because of changes in the English language usage.
Help!