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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Criminal Sentence 355: Lead vs. Led

From something I recently edited:

"The reader is lead to analyze the evidence and formulate a sound conclusion."

I often see this mistaken "lead," which, of course, should be "led." The verb is "to lead," and this is how you conjugate it:

Present: I lead, you lead, she leads, he leads, it leads, we lead, they lead
Past: I led, you led, she led, he led, it led, we led, they led
With a past participle: I have/had led, you have/had led, she has/had led, he has/had led, it has/had led, we have/had led, they have/had led

3 comments:

Ernest Nicastro said...

Yes, I see that one often. I think the problem is that people think of - maybe just subconsciously - "read" as in, "He read the book."

Lee Benson said...

I'm a graphic designer working on a schedule for a future event. The wording on an item as the client has it is "First night festival Jam lead by
Artistic Director Dave Morris!"

To simplify things, we'll say it's "Workshop lead by Dave Morris!"

I think it should be "Workshop led by Dave Morris!"

Am I right?

The Sentence Sleuth said...

Yes, Lee, it should be "led."