Let’s continue with Word Knots, where we look at common instances of words that are often confused or misused. 

Once again our source for this is installment is The Dictionary of Disagreeable English by Robert Hartwell Fiske (Chicago: Writer’s Digest Books). It’s a great book: Check it out.

Rather than take a stern ‘grammar police’ approach we always try to keep it light and in each installment point out examples of semantic confusion that should be considered “must to avoid.”

From Fiske:

lead

Solecistic for led.  

As Fiske says:

Led (LED) is the past tense of lead (LEED): to direct the course of; to guide; to be in charge; to be at the forefront of. Lead (LED) is a heavy, soft, bluish-gray metal.

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In written text, the most common way these words are confused is when “lead” is used when “led” is intended.

Let’s look at the most relevant Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary definitions:

lead

transitive verb

1  a : to cause to go with oneself : take or bring with use of duress

2  a : (1) : to guide on a way : show the way to a place especially by going with or in advance of

          (2) : to serve as a passage for : conduct to some place or in some direction

The past tense and past participle of lead is spelled led. Many people—perhaps influenced by the pronunciation of the metal lead or by the past tense of the verb read—tend to spell it lead. This is a common mistake in casual writing and is to be avoided.

lead

noun

1  a : a heavy soft malleable ductile plastic but inelastic bivalent or tetravalent metallic element that is bluish white when freshly cut but tarnishes readily in moist air to dull gray, that occurs mostly in combination (as in galena and cerussite) and usually is extracted from its ores by smelting and refined by removal especially of copper, silver, zinc, and bismuth, and that is used often in the form of alloys chiefly in pipes, sheaths for cables, acid-resistant linings, plates for lead-lead acid cells, solder, type metal, and shields against radioactivity and in making pigments and chemicals —symbol Pb

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So in both cases, Fiske and M-W make the distinctions clear. And although M-W says that using “lead” when “led” is correct is “a common mistake in casual writing,” I’ve seen it in published work where the writers should (and probably do) know better. Carelessness can be contagious.

Examples of each:

Going into the ninth inning, the Yankees led by two runs. 

But a three-run homer in the top of the ninth put the Red Sox in the lead.

I was very tired after the long walk: My feet felt like lead.

The popularity of cell phones led to the disappearance of pay phones in New York.

Note that one easy was to remember this is to consider a related word: misled.

The fake news on social media can be misleading.

Don’t be misled by bogus posts.

Once again, word choice is critical, which is why checking your work is an important step toward ensuring that your intended meaning is clear.

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