In Middle English, the tense forms were written in many different ways: the past as leaded, ledd, ledde, and so on, and the past participle as læded, læd, ledde, etc. The Oxford English Dictionary’s earliest example, which uses the past tense, is from an early eighth-century Old English translation of the Book of Psalms: “Astigende in heanisse gehefte lædde heftned” (“You ascended on high you led your captives in captivity”). In Old English, for example, the past tense was lædde and the past participle læded. We suspect that the people who write “lead” for the past and past participle pronounce the word as if it were spelled “led,” along the lines of “read,” which is pronounced like “red” in its past forms.Īs it turns out, the past and past participle of “lead” have been spelled all sorts of way since the verb appeared in Anglo-Saxon times as lædan. We’d add that “lead” belongs to the same class of irregular verbs as “bleed,” “breed,” and “feed.” Like them, it forms the past and past participle with a short “e” (“bled,” “bred,” “fed”). “The homophonic confusion leads to homographic confusion, and you will therefore occasionally see lead in constructions where led is called for (as in, ‘She lead the ducklings to safety’ instead of ‘She led the ducklings to safety’),” the dictionary says in a usage note, “When to Use Lead or Led.” Why the mix-ups? Merriam-Webster, one of the standard dictionaries mentioned above, says confusion over the pronunciations of the various words “lead” (the noun for a metal, the verb for going ahead, the adjective for most important, etc.) results in confusion over the spellings. In the paper, “Sub-freshman English,” Adams Sherman Hill and Elizabeth Aborn Withey report that Harvard applicants misspelled the metal “lead” as “led,” and the past tense and past participle “led” as “lead” (Educational Review, December 1897). It’s a usage that’s been criticized since the late 19th century, if not earlier.įor example, a paper analyzing the writing of students applying for admission to Harvard College in 1896 found that “led” and “lead” were among “a large class of misspelled words that indicate a difficulty in deciding between ‘e’ (or ‘ee’ ) and ‘ea.’ ” ![]() Is this a case of evolution? Or merely a misspelling?Ī: The only standard past tense and past participle of the verb “lead” is “led.” All ten standard dictionaries we regularly consult (five American and five British) agree on this.īut as you’ve noticed, the past and participle are sometimes written as “lead,” though this isn’t a new phenomenon. control, controlled).Q: I notice more and more the spelling “lead” where “led” is intended. However, both British and American English double the final –l in some verbs where the stress falls on the last syllable (e.g. cancel, fuel, travel) often double the final letter before the suffixes –ed and –ing in British English ( cancelled, cancelling), but not in American English ( canceled, canceling). Verbs with more than one syllable ending in –l (e.g. US: We need to analyze the results of the survey.UK: We need to analyse the results of the survey.There are some exceptions verbs always ending in –ise include advertise, disguise, exercise, and surprise, while the verb capsize always ends in –ize. ![]() ![]() analyse/analyze, paralyse/paralyze) American English prefers the suffix –yze while British English prefers –yse. Similarly, for verbs ending in -yse/-yze (e.g. organise/organize, recognise/recognize), the suffix –ize is usually preferred in American English, while in British English –ise is more common (but both are acceptable). For verbs ending in the suffix -ise/-ize (e.g.
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