Legal / English

[tcdaniel]

I’ve seen again and again the phrase “…he pleaded guilty…”.
My question is - shouldn’t this be “he plead guilty”?
IANAL, but I think something is wrong with this word pleaded.

[tcdaniel]

My english teacher would have given me an F for saying something like He rided the bike to school.

This must be some of the new school larnen

[Peter_Morris]

And I suppose that after he plead guilty, he was hung?

[RedNaxela]

IANAL either, but a quick Google search (on pled pleaded) seems to show that, if anything, it’s the other way around: pleaded is generally considered the more correct form.

For example, from the Columbia Guide to Standard English (http://www.bartleby.com/68/32/4632.html):

plead (v.)

The past tense is pleaded, pled, or plead (this last pronounced PLED), and the past participle, pleaded, pled, or plead (PLED). Pleaded, the regular weak verb form, is more frequent for both parts of speech, and the pled and plead past and past participle forms are labeled Colloquial by some dictionaries, Standard by others.

Plead not guilty and plead guilty are Standard idioms (His lawyer advised him to plead not guilty [guilty]), and the media almost always uses pled to report a defendant’s actions: The defendant pled [not] guilty.

And if it still looks strange, consider this: you “needed” an answer to this question, or you “ned” one?