Writing Pet Peeves: "Mute Point"

Mute Point.

Pardon me?  Are you sure you meant to say "silent point"?  Think about that for a minute, and let it sink in.  What is a mute point?  Is it a point left unexpressed because it is silent?  Does the silence of the point mean there really is no point at all?  If you are a person who makes mute points, what do you mean by that term?

You meant to say "irrelevant point", did you not? 

It is disheartening to say that today's pet peeve is made by otherwise reasonably educated people who should know better.  I have heard this one and seen it in writing one too many times.  I cringe when I hear it coming out of the mouth of a normally literate and articulate professional person.  When I hear it in speech, it makes me want to stand up and rudely interrupt the speaker and ask, "Was it a deaf point too?"  I want to grab a red pen and bleed on offending lines in written work.  When I read it online, usually in a blog post or in a journalistic article I want to tear my hair out. 

I don't understand why people who usually write well commit this one.  The only thing I can figure is they have heard and not read it and assumed the word they heard was "mute", and not "moot". 

I am sure that they would be upset to know that they are abusing the language as they are usually educated enough not to want to sound stupid.

Those undereducated rarely make points, either moot or mute.  This is a term foreign to their usage.

But for those who in the future would like to make their points correctly:

Mute =
1) adj. silent, not speaking
2) adj. incapable of speech
3) n.  One incapable of speech
4) n. a device to deaden the resonance of a musical instrument
5) Transitive verb to deaden the resonance of

Moot =
1) adj. debatable, open to discussion
2) adj. of little or no practical value
3) adj. irrelevant, of no significance
4) adj. hypothetical
5) v. to present or introduce for discussion
6) v. To reduce or remove the practical significance of
7) n. Assembly of people in early England exercising political, administrative and judicial powers
8) n. An argument or discussion of a hypothetical case

For our purposes, a moot point is a debatable point or an irrelevant point, or a point of little or no practical value.   There is no such thing as a mute point.