The pair of words, lead and led, has tripped me up in the past because the word lead, usually pronounced leed can be pronounced led when talking about the metal of lead, defined by Dictionary.com as "a heavy, comparatively soft, malleable, bluish-gray metal, sometimes found in its natural state but usually combined as a sulfide, especially in galena." The proper word is also lead when using the metal in a cliche as in "He has a lead foot," describing a perpetual speeder. Because lead sounds like led and my fingers sometimes fly faster than my brain, they insist on writing lead when I mean led.
The word lead (pronounced leed, not describing the metal), can be used as a present tense verb, noun, or an adjective. According to Dictionary.com, the present tense verb means to go first, show the way, guide, or influence.For example, on my desk is a Isabel Bloom heart I received at a Women's Connection conference that says, "Lead with your heart."
According to Dictionary.com, as a noun, lead (leed) means the position in first place or ahead of others, something that leads (or goes first, shows the way, guides, or influence), or a particular type of leash. As an adjective, Dictionary.com says lead describes the most important thing, that which goes first, or that which leads. As a noun, an example would be, "I got the lead in the school musical." And, as an adjective, "I got the lead role in the school musical."
Led, on the other hand, is simply the past tense and past participle version of the verb, lead, not to be confused with the capitalized version, LED, that Dictionary.com includes which describes a type of light bulb.
Fortunately, just like this lead vs. led mistake can be easy for your fingers to make as you're flying along writing on your keyboard, it's just as easy for your brain to correct it during the editing and proofreading process. Just remember the only time you use the led-pronounced version of lead is when talking about the metal. If you are using the word as the past tense of the leed-pronounced verb of lead, then use led.
May you always be in the lead position after you have led your followers to lead.
-The Wordsy Woman
No comments:
Post a Comment