This drives me nuts when I see it done wrong, but it’s actually kind of complicated because English is orthographically deranged.
Lead (/liːd/) [verb, present tense]: to guide, etc. I asked them to lead us in a rousing revolutionary anthem.
Led (/led/) [verb, past tense]: as above, but past tense. Later, we were led to a blank concrete wall.
Lead (/led/) [noun]: A soft, poisonous metal. Bullets are most often made of lead.
Just to make it confusing…
Lead (/liːd/) [noun]: kind of like “leader”. Officer Johnson was our lead on this operation. (Note: it also means “leash”; e.g., I clipped the lead to Bowser’s collar.)
Lede (/liːd/) [noun]: The first bit of a news story, often the first sentence. I didn’t read the full article, but the lede suggested the protesters were decimated by police.
Leeds [proper noun]: A Town in England. Leeds is the worst place to stage peaceful protests.
And finally…
LED (ell ee dee) [noun, abbr.]: Abbreviation for light-emitting diode. For the love of any gods you might believe in, fucking capitalize it. Electronics hobbyists I’m looking in your direction.
More Examples
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Wrong: I was lead into the woods by a stranger.
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Right: I was led into the woods by a stranger.
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Wrong: The lead in an ad about cheap bulk led lead me to lede my leed dog to Leides on her led lede.
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Right: The lede in an ad about cheap bulk lead led me to lead my lead dog to Leeds on her LED lead.
(The last example is stupidly confusing, but it was fun to write.)
Don’t forget that “lead” rhymes with “read” and “lead” rhymes with “read”, but “lead” doesn’t rhyme with “read” and “lead” doesn’t rhyme with “read”.
In French there is a similar word: ver/vers/vair/verre, all of these are pronounced the same
Ver(s): worm(s) Vers: it can either means “towards”, “around” or if it’s use as a noun it means a “verse” in poetry. Verre: glass Vair : a fur used in medieval time.
Fun fact: in the original Cinderella story she was wearing fur slippers (vair). However with time and oral transmission of the story the fur become glass (vair -> Verre)
This is why I love English. In Spanish every use case has a different word, eliminating the confusion. Reminds me of the phrase “John while James had had had…”
One of my biggest nitpicks is lie vs lay
Lie Lay I usually lie on the bed. Lay down your weapon. Yesterday, I lay on the bed. He laid his weapon down. “lie” has two meanings too…
“But Dave lied when he said he lay on his bed.”
Same word, different meanings, different tenses
- Wrong: I was lead into the woods by a stranger.
Double-check with proper English. Get ready for learning.
But led/lead isn’t the big issue, is it? We have people who learned about words like ‘traffic’ and ‘mail’ and still put an s on the end of ‘email’ like an absolute git.
Let’s tackle led/lead after we are done spiritually crushing the ‘emails’ idiots, and those who confuse that/which/whom/who, and the if/whether idiots. Effect/affect and there/their/they’re are excellent early goals to achieve too before we go for the more nuanced stuff.
If you found a clue, is that a lead or a lede?
Depends on if you found it at the beginning of a newspaper article or not.
A lead, as in something that leads you to the next step in the investigation.
Homophones and Homographs!
“What are, two words that will offend your backwards uncle at Thanksgiving?”
Nice. I miss Alex.
Where does this leave Led Zeppelin? Am I guiding said Zeppelin somewhere?
Justice for Leeds!
(It’s a city not a town)
Or for the audio version, it is read like lead and not read like lead.
Very common in UK / Australia but almost never heard in the US (we usually say cables instead).
… but you’re aware that the majority of the world is not in fact in the US.
You are technically correct, the best kind of correct.
I feel like native speakers should read this, they are the number one transgressor when it comes to their/there/they’re and other similar sounding words (homonyms?), as well as “payed” and other creative transcriptions.
for the rest of us it’s damn near impossible to mix these up.
