Dictionary.com lists both “pled” and “pleaded” as acceptable conjugations of the verb plead. But it seems like virtually all newspaper articles I see use the phrase “pleaded guilty” and not “pled guilty.” Is one of these words considered stylistically or grammatically superior to the other? Or are they truly interchangable?
FWIW, Google lists 287,000 hits for the exact phrase “pleaded guilty,” and only 102,000 hits for “pled guilty,” so it certainly seems the former is more prevalent.
Stylistically? That depends upon whose style manual one is obliged to follow. Grammatically? They are indeed equivalent and interchangeable, just like leaped/leapt/lept or dreamed/dreamt.
The U.S. Supreme Court uses the terms interchangeably as far as I can tell. I prefer to use ‘pled’ myself, ‘pleaded’ just sounds wrong in some instances. I think it’s because ‘pleadings’ are legal documents, and I see pleadings as having been pled, rather than pleadings having been pleaded.
But that’s me. I’m not aware of a rule on the subject.
The partner down the hall, a better legal writer than myself, prefers ‘pleaded’ but doesn’t know of a rule either.
The American usage guides on my bookshelf insist that pled and pleaded are equally correct in American English but in standard British English, only pleaded is correct. On the other hand, The Columbia Journalism Review prefers pleaded, as does the Bureau of Justice Statistics Style Guide, which I won’t link to because it’s a large PDF file, and all it says on the matter is
As a rule, if the dictionary lists two or more forms, the first one listed is generally either the more common or the preferred form, depending on the dictionary. That rule doesn’t help you a whole lot if the two forms are equally correct though. When in doubt, I pick the first form listed.
The regular version is usually used instead of the irregular
Thanks bibliophage. If I ever move to London and become a barrister I will be sure to use ‘pleaded’ and save myself embarrassment.
The Associated Press style book prefers “pleaded.” That’s probably why you seldom see “pled” in American newspapers.