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”). To this moderately convoluted situation, add the past tense and past participle of the verb lead, which is led and pronounced like the metal noun lead with a short e. The verb lead is pronounced /LEED/, with a long e the noun that refers to a position or advantage is also pronounced /LEED/, with a long e the noun that refers to the metal, however, is pronounced /LED/, with a short e. There are several unrelated nouns spelled lead: one most commonly refers to a metal (as in, “The paint was made with lead”), and the other most commonly refers to a position of advantage (as in, “Our team was in the lead”). Lead is both a noun and a verb, as most people know. Or, we should say, there is confusion about the leads and led. There is some persistent confusion about lead and led. Here’s a handy mnemonic for you to use: If you don’t use “led,” I’ll see red.Īnd if you don’t believe me, here’s Merriam-Webster on the subject: Lead (n.) is a kind of metal, or what a pencil uses to write ( but not really).Read (v.) is the past tense of Read (v.), while.Led (v.) is the past tense of Lead (v.), but.You might be wondering, Well why shouldn’t “lead” and “read” work the same way? I don’t have a real answer, but I do have a theory, completely ungrounded in anything but my own guesswork: “The incident lead to an 11-day inpatient hospital stay…”įor what it’s worth, the spelling error isn’t the most disturbing thing in that article, which is about kids being hospitalized for Fortnite addictions, but still. What’s consistency?Įven cultural bastions like The New York Times and The Boston Globe aren’t immune. I blame that quirky verb “to read” and the natural human desire for consistency.īut come on, this is the English language.

More and more lately, I’ve been seeing this error. The past tense of the verb “to lead” is spelled “led,” not “lead.” A brief public service announcement from the Office of Grammatical Pedantry:

Red past tense of read