Getting the Led Out
Indulge me in a little shop talk for a few minutes, if you don't mind. One of the editorial annoyances I've been noticing lately is rampant misspelling of the past tense of lead. You can come up with some reasonable justifications for it, I guess, but I blame Led Zeppelin. Kicking off a long line of heavy metal bands intentionally misspelling their names, I think Led Zep subliminally trained us to think that the word led is misspelled. Which it is, if you're talking about the metal that shields you from x-rays or makes up pipes in Clue (which Led Zeppelin was). But it's not misspelled if you're using it as the past tense of lead.
Admittedly, spelling the past tense of lead as lead makes a bit of sense. The metal is spelled that way and pronounced led. The past tense of read is spelled read, yet it's pronounced red. So what reason would you have to think lead and its past tense aren't spelled the same way? Well, no reason, really, except that it's WRONG!
So the next time you have ocassion to use lead and its past tense ("The pep squad led the crowd in cheering"; "David Ortiz led the league in RBIs"; George W. Bush led the country into an unnecessary preemptive war"), remember to drop the a. I'd appreciate it.
posted by Doug @ 11:06 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
You had me there for a while. I was thinking "Finally! Someone who shares in my quest to reclaim the English language, to restore its lost glory!" But then the sham became apparent. Yes, it was all a cheap ruse to let you subtly boost your beloved Red Sox and to dump on our beloved W. And the two of them don't even belong in the same discussion. After all, the Red Sox might be better next year.
You're wrong, Chuck. This is a completely sincere post. It wasn't until I'd almost reached the end of it that I realized I had an opportunity to boost the Red Sox and dis W, too. Think of that as a happy coincidence.
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