Pled - Right. Pleaded - Wrong. Says I.
Before I was a lawyer, I said, and I thought most people said, "he pled guilty." Lawyers say pled, when speaking or writing in the past tense. For the past few years, if you hear about a plea, present tense, on TV or on radio, or read about a plea in a newspaper or magazine, he or she pleaded. I don't like it. It doesn't sound or read right.
http://www.cjr.org/tools/lc/pleadguilty.asp says I'm wrong, with some sympathy. Blogger spell check wants to substitute plead for pled, having no sense of tense. It has no problem with pleaded.
Answer.com says "v., plead·ed or pled (plĕd)." Something called die.net disagrees with me. Worldwebonline.com puts pled before pleaded for usage.
I say I'm right. You be the judge, legally or stylistically.
8 comments:
Oh, please tell me how you made that awesome "short e" diacritical mark. SO cool. (Color me easily amused.)
Newbie,
The wonders of copy and paste from the website I stole it from.
I love diacritical. It's almost as good as umlaut.
Newbie,
Postscript to my comment on your comment:
http://german.about.com/library/blfaq_pc1.htm
Didn't read the article; but, it purports to explain how to create all kinds of squiggles on your computer.
That's Interesting, some time something goes wrong but always trust on your self.............and be confident
The Associated Press Style Guide (which the magazine where I work, InformationWeek, follows), says "pleaded."
"Pled" is indeed in the dictionary, however, so it is not wrong.
I just read another example on another blog. "She sneaked in..." rather than she snuck.
I understand that the NYTimes goes the same way as AP. I guess I just have to live with the involuntary shudder when I read or hear such constructions.
I'm all for 'pled' - as long as I'm not the one actually pleading.
"Pleaded" might be more correct, but I agree that "pled" sounds better.
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