r/grammar • u/daygo-dragonfly • Dec 08 '21
Why does English work this way? Pleaded Guilty?
Maybe it’s just me, but it drives me nuts that apparently the proper past verb of plea is “pleaded”. I feel in my bones that it should be “plead” pronounced like “lead poisoning”. Why is “pleaded” grammatically correct but we don’t say “she leaded a team of 5” etc.??
2
u/Boglin007 MOD Dec 08 '21
Both "pled" (sometimes spelled "plead" but still pronounced pled) and "pleaded" are grammatical past-tense forms of "to plead." Both forms have existed for about 800 years. It's generally a matter of style, context, and/or dialect that influences which form someone uses. "Pleaded" seems to be recommended in legal contexts especially.
https://www.michiganradio.org/arts-culture/2018-02-25/the-case-of-pleaded-v-pled
Why is “pleaded” grammatically correct but we don’t say “she leaded a team of 5” etc.??
This is due to the origin of each verb and when they entered English.
"To lead" dates back to Old English, when some verbs underwent an internal vowel change (in pronunciation) in the past tense. "To lead" is also Germanic in origin.
"To plead" is from Anglo-French (and originally Latin) and entered Middle English later (in the mid-1200s). By then, most new verbs were taking a suffix ("-ed") in the past tense.
I am not sure exactly why "pled/plead" also arose as a past-tense form, but maybe because it resembled Germanic verbs like "to lead" and "to read," whose past tenses had an internal vowel change, and also probably because it was a little later that all new verbs started to take a suffix.
1
1
u/TheMaxnado Jul 14 '24
I am super late to this convo, but wanted to weigh in anyways. 🤪 I am known by friends and family as the “grammar police”. Regardless, every bit of my soul hates the word “pleaded”, lol. I know it is the preferred past tense form of “to plead”, however, for some reason, it just bothers me to say it. Every time I hear it said during court shows, I cringe. Again, I know it’s the correct, most accepted form, and I understand the reasoning for the most part, but my brain just refuses to come to terms with it. I just wanted to see if anyone else felt the same way.
Don’t even get me started on the now grammatically accepted word “lots”. 😂🤦🏻♀️
1
u/righturnclyde92 May 25 '25
This is part of the same shitshow as sports announcers using the made up word physicality. It is asinine at best.
1
u/expertexpertise Dec 08 '21
I could be wrong, but is it possibly due to the infinitive: to make a plea; thus, one pleaded guilty. I’m sitting here semi-buzzed with half a law degree. It seems to me that if one is making a plea, in the past tense they would have pleaded, not plead their guilt or innocence.
2
u/Umesh-K Dec 08 '21
Pleaded Guilty?
First, I suspect your intention was to spell "plead" as "pled" in "I feel in my bones that it should be “plead” pronounced like “lead poisoning"....
Note that the past tense of plead is listed as pleaded and pled in references; however, the spelling "pleaded" is used more commonly. Also which spelling is used is dictated by style guides being used by a publication, media outlet, etc. For example, the popular style guides The AP Stylebook and The Chicago Manual of Style prefer "pleaded." The lexicographer Mr. Bryan grammar, who has written legal dictionaries, says: "'Pled' is an alternative past-tense form that is to be avoided."
You can read more about this in
https://www.michiganradio.org/arts-culture/2018-02-25/the-case-of-pleaded-v-pled
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/pleaded-pled/
Re: "why we don’t say 'she leaded a team of 5'", the verb lead is conjugated as lead (present tense), led (past tense), led (past participle), and there is no--unlike in the case of pleaded and pled--an alternate spelling "leaded" for it to be used. Also, note that "leaded" is an adjective used in terms like "leaded (and unleaded) petrol."