# The past tense of Lead is Led
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-tense-of-lead-is-led/834700
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [May 29, 2019, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-tense-of-lead-is-led/834700 "2019-05-29T08:13:43Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2019, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-tense-of-lead-is-led/834700/41 "2019-05-30T18:12:28Z")
> [@racepug](#):
>
> the very ones that Bill Bryson once wrote that “English is thankfully free of.”)
Aha, another opportunity for me to point out that Bill Bryson is not a reliable source for information nor an authoritative source for anything at all, including opinions about the English language.
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### Author:  [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2019, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-tense-of-lead-is-led/834700/42 "2019-05-30T18:17:00Z")
You know, Lead was always my favorite Metal Man. Sure, he wasn’t as showy as some of the others, but you could depend on him in a pinch.
He would be there for you if your mechanical pencil ran out of…
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### Author:  [@racepug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racepug)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2019, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-tense-of-lead-is-led/834700/43 "2019-05-30T19:01:51Z")
> [@Acsenray](#):
>
> Aha, another opportunity for me to point out that Bill Bryson is not a reliable source for information nor an authoritative source for anything at all, including opinions about the English language.
Perhaps not. But I still think that some accent marks, here and there, would help with the pronunciation of certain, less-common English words.
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2019, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-tense-of-lead-is-led/834700/44 "2019-05-30T19:09:57Z")
> [@racepug](#):
>
> Perhaps not. But I still think that some accent marks, here and there, would help with the pronunciation of certain, less-common English words.
I have no objection to diacritics. I still subscribe to the _New Yorker_, which to my delight still prints “cooperate” as “coöperate.”
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2019, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-tense-of-lead-is-led/834700/45 "2019-05-30T20:06:05Z")
In traditional journalistic jargon, the beginning of a story was the “lede” and the spacing between printed lines was “ledding.” Both to avoid the ambiguity of “lead.”
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### Author:  [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2019, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-tense-of-lead-is-led/834700/46 "2019-05-30T20:22:00Z")
So homophones and homonyms cause a lot of trouble for writers if they’re not just super tuned in to the whisperings of the grammar spirits.
Next you’ll be telling me water is wet, or that fire burns.
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### Author:  [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2019, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-tense-of-lead-is-led/834700/47 "2019-05-30T20:44:08Z")
> [@Acsenray](#):
>
> In traditional journalistic jargon, the beginning of a story was the “lede” and the spacing between printed lines was “ledding.” Both to avoid the ambiguity of “lead.”
Not sure how “traditional” something is in language when it was invented in the 1950s (first documented usage was 1951).
I endorse the OP’s pitting. It bothers me when I read a published article that presumably was subject to professional editors and yet misuses the word “lead” as past tense. Gah!
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2019, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-tense-of-lead-is-led/834700/48 "2019-05-30T21:01:37Z")
> [@Atamasama](#):
>
> Not sure how “traditional” something is in language when it was invented in the 1950s (first documented usage was 1951).
That’s more than one generation of journalists. Good enough for me. Do you really want to nitpick the scope of “traditional”?
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### Author:  [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2019, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-tense-of-lead-is-led/834700/49 "2019-05-30T21:56:00Z")
> [@Acsenray](#):
>
> Do you really want to nitpick the scope of “traditional”?
Pedantry on the Dope? Unimaginable.
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### Author:  [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2019, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-tense-of-lead-is-led/834700/50 "2019-05-31T12:57:09Z")
I clicked two of OP’s links. One led to a use of ‘lead’ in infinitive form where ‘led’ would have been quite incorrect. The other was a sentence where either past or present tense would be proper.
OP Failure.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2019, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-tense-of-lead-is-led/834700/51 "2019-05-31T15:49:01Z")
> [@EllisDee](#):
>
> Come join us in the present day, grandpa! The AP Stylebook stopped capitalizing “internet” years ago, much like nobody capitalizes “phonograph” anymore either.
The AP Stylebook has not “stopped capitalizing ‘internet’” as the AP Stylebook is not a person and it does no writing. If one looks within it, however, one finds that it recommends, as a matter of style, the use of the lower case in “internet”. But “years ago” was actually only since June, 2016, and in terms of worldwide usage, it was a bit ahead of the curve. The usage is changing, but [according to this](https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2016/04/05/should-you-capitalize-internet/) the capitalized form was still predominant in the US as of 2016, while the lower-case form has been much more widely used in the UK. Notwithstanding the AP Stylebook, it seems to be another one of those US-UK distinctions. There is perhaps no publication more obsessive about style – sometimes to the point of pedantry – than the _New Yorker_ magazine, [where “Internet” and “Web” are both capitalized](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/28/who-owns-the-internet).
I’m just glad that no one has to remind me – as they once did – that nobody calls it the Arpanet anymore! 😉
> [@kaylasdad99](#):
>
> Unless it’s at the beginning of a sentence, “motherfuckers” should not be capitalized. Nor should its abbreviation. The same holds true for the term “melon farmers.”
But “MF” is an acronym, which is a special kind of abbreviation that is typically capitalized. Suppose you disagreed with the first post in this thread. Would you say “the OP is a POS”, or “the op is a pos”?
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2019, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-tense-of-lead-is-led/834700/52 "2019-05-31T16:01:37Z")
“MF” is not an acronym. Neither is “OP” or “POS.”
“Arpanet” is an acronym.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2019, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-tense-of-lead-is-led/834700/53 "2019-05-31T16:19:07Z")
A bit nitpicky and not quite right, though a pedant would have called those terms “initialisms”:
Some people feel strongly that acronym should only be used for terms like NATO, which is pronounced as a single word, and that initialism should be used if the individual letters are all pronounced distinctly, as with FBI. Our research shows that acronym is commonly used to refer to both types of abbreviations.
> **[Definition of INITIALISM](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/initialism)**
>
> an abbreviation formed from initial letters… See the full definition
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### Author:  [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2019, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-tense-of-lead-is-led/834700/54 "2019-05-31T19:55:08Z")
> [@septimus](#):
>
> I clicked two of OP’s links. One led to a use of ‘lead’ in infinitive form where ‘led’ would have been quite incorrect. The other was a sentence where either past or present tense would be proper.
Which two did you click?
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> But “years ago” was actually only since June, 2016
Yeah, exactly. Three years ago is, in fact, “years ago.” Should I have instead said “last year”?
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### Author:  [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2019, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-tense-of-lead-is-led/834700/55 "2019-05-31T22:16:34Z")
> [@Acsenray](#):
>
> “MF” is not an acronym. Neither is “OP” or “POS.”
>
> “Arpanet” is an acronym.
I see “acronym” defined as being formed from the first letters of other words, pronounced as a single word in its own right. As such, MF and POS _are_ in fact acronyms, whereas Arpanet is actually not (“ **A** dvanced **R** esearch **P** roject **A** gency **NET** work”).
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2019, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-tense-of-lead-is-led/834700/56 "2019-05-31T22:33:19Z")
> [@EllisDee](#):
>
> Yeah, exactly. Three years ago is, in fact, “years ago.” Should I have instead said “last year”?
No, what you should NOT have said is “_Come join us in the present day, grandpa! The AP Stylebook stopped capitalizing “internet” years ago, much like nobody capitalizes “phonograph” anymore either_.” The implication that what the AP Stylebook set out as their standard somehow applies to the whole world obviously isn’t true, and especially not in the US, where you appear to be residing, and where the opposite convention still prevails.
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### Author:  [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2019, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-tense-of-lead-is-led/834700/57 "2019-05-31T22:45:25Z")
> [@eschereal](#):
>
> I see “acronym” defined as being formed from the first letters of other words, pronounced as a single word in its own right. As such, MF and POS _are_ in fact acronyms, whereas Arpanet is actually not (“ **A** dvanced **R** esearch **P** roject **A** gency **NET** work”).
MF and POS are only “words in their own right” if you pronounce them phonetically, like “mmph” and “paws”. If you pronounce them as separate letters they’re simply initials.
NATO and NASA are acronyms while CIA and UPS aren’t, by your stated definition.
Of course you’re going to find different opinions from different sources. The Wikipedia article on acronyms seems to do a pretty good job of summing it up.
> **[Acronym](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym)**
>
> An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial letter of each word in all caps with no punctuation.
>
> For some, an initialism or alphabetism, connotes this general meaning, and an acronym is a subset with a narrower definition: an acronym is pronounced as a word rather than as a sequence of letters. In this sense, NASA /ˈnæsə/ is an acro...
“There are no universal standards for the multiple names for such abbreviations or for their orthographic styling.”
So this is kind of like arguing which pizza toppings are “best”. (The answer is of course pepperoni and extra cheese.)
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2019, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-tense-of-lead-is-led/834700/58 "2019-05-31T23:16:40Z")
> [@eschereal](#):
>
> I see “acronym” defined as being formed from the first letters of other words, pronounced as a single word in its own right. As such, MF and POS _are_ in fact acronyms, whereas Arpanet is actually not (“ **A** dvanced **R** esearch **P** roject **A** gency **NET** work”).
An acronym is an abbreviation that is pronounced like a word in its own. Laser, scuba, radar, UNICEF, Nato, AIDS, Patriot Act are acronyms. It’s a type of abbreviation.
Another type of abbreviation is an initialiam, which is pronounced as a series of individual letters. FBI, CIA, NBC, are initialiams.
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### Author:  [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2019, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-tense-of-lead-is-led/834700/59 "2019-06-01T02:59:53Z")
> [@eschereal](#):
>
> You are correct, of course. I had thought the word was “hew”, for some odd reason.
For all intensive purposes their the same.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2019, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-past-tense-of-lead-is-led/834700/60 "2019-06-01T03:02:14Z")
> [@OldOlds](#):
>
> For all intensive purposes their the same.
I assume you mean intensive porpoises.
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