Pled versus pleaded

@Marian ... of course pled is a word. But in case you don't believe me:

From M-W:
plead, verb \ˈplēd\
plead·ed\ˈplē-dəd\ or *** pled ***also plead\ˈpled\plead·ing ... ***emphasis mine.

If that isn't enuff ... It's worth seven points in Scrabble http://www.wordnik.com/words/pled

They weren't wrong to do so.

From OE: snîcan to sneak along, creep, crawl, ['snike']
snícan Strong sv/i1 ... a strong verb changes the vowel in the past tense!
ic sníce present
ic snác past
ic gesnicen part.

My ME wordbook doesn't conjugate it. However we know it was a strong verb coming out of OE so it isn't surprising to find that many continued to change the vowel in the past tense. I could argue, etymologically speaking, that snuck is more correct than sneaked.

Regardless, snuck is acceptable. And I prefer it.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sneak

sneak verb \ˈsnēk\
sneaked or snuck, sneak·ing

Definition of SNEAK

intransitive verb
1: to go stealthily or furtively : slink
2: to act in or as if in a furtive manner
3: to carry the football on a quarterback sneak

transitive verb
: to put, bring, or take in a furtive or artful manner
— sneak up on
: to approach or act on stealthily

Usage Discussion of SNEAK

From its earliest appearance in print in the late 19th century as a dialectal and probably uneducated form, the past and past participle snuck has risen to the status of standard and to approximate equality with sneaked. It is most common in the United States and Canada but has also been spotted in British and Australian English.

Examples of SNEAK

They tried to sneak into the movie without paying.
She sneaked some cigars through customs.
He snuck a few cookies out of the jar while his mother wasn't looking.
They caught him trying to sneak food into the theater.
Can I sneak a peek at your quiz answers?

I teach in a graduate program and gave my students a writing skills test. They were supposed to correct grammar errors in sentences. More than half the students thought that "sneaked" (as in "she sneaked into the house after her curfew") was incorrect and changed it to "snuck." Argh.

@Alice ... Let me consult my medium circa materiam ... Hmmmm, she's says that treating media as a collective noun has been around since the 1920s and that it and data both can take a singular verb.

The general rule of thumb is that once a loanword is taken into a language then that language can, and usually does, treat it according to its own grammar rules and usage. It may be plural in Latin but it can be used as a collective noun in English. We do the opposite with information. In English it is a singular noun with no plural (we don't say informations) ... We took it from French ... and there is a plural in French!

@JusticeJim ... Pet peeve alert! ... "All but myself and one other Justice have never stepped foot in a criminal courtroom..." Hold out your hand and let me slap it! "Myself" is wrong, no matter which way you look at it ... and you need commas to clarify. Here's a quick webpage on reflexive pronouns: http://grammartips.homestead.com/self.html

I was taught "pled" growing up in the 90s. "Pleaded" sounds like something a kid would say when they haven't learned the proper usage yet.

As a child in Canada, I was taught that "plead" and "plead" [pled] were both present and past tense, similar to "read" and "read" [red], and to "lead" and "lead" [led]. I suppose this is just the difference between the British way of speaking and spelling and the American way. Of course, it is their language.

A curious thing.... I happened on this in searching for some background for some advice I was preparing to give a non-native English speaker regarding a piece he'd written. In it, he had written that a character "bargained, plead and cajoled with" another character. I started off trying to communicate that cajoling is something that the actor does alone - one doesn't cajole with someone - one merely cajoles someone. But then I got lost on "plead." It was obvious that he needed the past tense, but which one? To my thinking, "pled" works better on its own, while "pleaded" works better with the prepositional phrase - one pled, or one pleaded with another. I wasn't certain though that that was the case, so I went out onto the web looking for some sort of verification. Instead, I found this, so I thought I'd just drop it in here for comment.

@lloyola - How ironic that your post extolling the virtues of grammatical correctness would itself contain a grammatical error. The correct usage is "our media ARE," not "our media IS." The word "media" is the plural form of "medium."

And the name is spelled Kramden, not Cramden.

Many years ago in Canada, where I went to school, the present and past tense were both "lead." The past tense was not spelt (spelled?) "led." Also, the present and past tense were both "plead." We never heard (heared?) nor read "pleaded" or "pled."

Leapt vs leaped, crept vs creeped, trod vs treaded, lead vs leaded, the trend is indeed vexacious.

Can't understand who or why some of these gramatical pundits think that all of the sudden, pleaded has replaced pled. The media happily decided that this is the correct form of the word and has since used only pleaded when speaking about crimes. This is just some random person's idea so why do we need to follow and correct a word that has been used as long as pleaded? Another word, that drives me crazy is axed instead of asked. People were simply not corrected when they fell into this lazy tongue derivative. One more thing, is the ly term that is not used anymore with verbs. Such as serious?

Can't understand who or why some of these gramatical pundits think that all of the the sudden, pleaded has replaced pled. The media happily decided that this is the correct form of the word and has since used only pleaded when speaking about crimes. This is just some random person's idea so why do we need to follow and correct a word that has been used as long as pleaded? Another word, that drives me crazy is axed instead of asked. People were simply not corrected when they fell into this lazy tongue derivative. One more thing, is the ly term that is not used anymore with verbs. Such as serious?

While we're at it, how about another of my pet peeves? The word "the". It's pronounced "th-uh" before a hard consonant, but pronounced "th-ee" before an open vowel sound. As in:

Thuh beginning
Thee end

When I hear "thuh end", I think I'm listening to a two year old. I really cringe when it comes from one of my kids' teachers.

This has been driving me crazy for a few years, along with the phrase,"revert back to"; (how many times are you returning?) and the use of the word "a" in the place of the word "an". "An" will be the next word to disappear. I hear the media skipping over it on a regular basis as well as everyone promising to send someone a e-mail. Nails on the chalkboard for me!

Pled should be the correct form of the word used. Pleaded doesn't sound correct and until recently was not used most often. I don't care what any of the so called "professional word" people state. It's common sense, not rocket science.

I looked this up because I wanted to know for sure. So obviously I have only preference to fall on. I giggle at some of the comments on the redundant sound of pleaded... Like runned-ed. Everyone knows it's ranned-ed :)

Indeed plea is the root of plead, but plea is a noun, and cannot be conjugated. So I can't really 'hear' the redundancy of pleaded unless it's pronounced pled-ed, because plead (pleed) is not plea-ed. Confused yet.
I'm not saying one is right and the other is wrong, I just can't find a straight answer. It's all a matter of opinion

Sure read and read, lead and led, bleed and bled...
What about need and ned, heed and hed, seed and sed? Oh wait...

As one who drafts opinions daily, this is a subject of great interest.
Most (if not all) the balance of my nine-member intermediate Court of Appeals
uses "pleaded". All but myself and one other Justice have never stepped foot in a criminal courtroom as counsel to either the State or the citizen accused.
I've insisted my staff use "pled". But, let's face it, it looks weird.
I'm with Uncle Bob (April 13, 2011, 8:06pm)...and think it makes best sense to use "pled", pronounce it "pled" and spell it "plead".

'bepleden crys' is definitely more poetic therefore emotional than 'bepleaded crys'

Here hear! I hearded the shifted use of the passeded tense, too. And I don'ted liked it then, and I still don't likeded it now. To my ears, it sounded do much like an "Ebonics" form of translation. I vote to drop it, in favor of "pled" (or maybe pronounced as such, but spelled [or spelt] "plead"). Was that well saided?

Personally, it drives me nuts... It's become like nails on a chalkboard. Every time I hear it or read pleaded, I liken it to someone saying "I runned-ed away".

Of course the problem is that is is grammatically a real puzzle:

The question popularly asked in court is "How do you plea?"
The answer is "I plead" innocent or guilty (at least in most cases.)

The proper form of past tense for "plea" would certainly be "pled" not "pleaed". If one considers the root to be "plea", then "pleaded" is some oddly redundant construction. If you consider "plead" to be the root, then "pleaded" may be correct.

Of course, the wrench in the works is that "plea" is a noun, the verb is "plead." While we have a general tendency to conjugate nouns (after all, I googled my way here), that doesn't make it correct.

However, when we look at similar verbs, we quickly see that the past tense of read is "read" (pronounced "red") and the past tense of "lead" is "led." If you add to that meet/met, feed/fed, and the like, it is hard to see any undue confusion here. Leaving the past tense of "plead" as "pled" directly conforms to the pattern of at least one other common verb, thereby following the rule, not creating yet another exception.

Then again, we could go with he rules of "tread" which is arguably the closest thing: that would mean that "plea" is gone in favor of "plead", and the past tense becomes "plod"; oops, that one's taken, too.

I humbly submit "pled" should be preferred above "pleaded" rather than adopting "leaded," which is how you spell the phonetic word "leded" (see lead[2].)

I noticed this irritating change (pled to pleaded) around the time of OJ, the Menendez Brothers, and the advent of "Court TV". It seems to have been a conspiracy in the media to all shift usage at once. This irritates me almost as much as “pre-owned”.

Okay, a language is living and breathing (and wheezing and coughing) entity. I get that. But speaking for myself, I will *never* accept “pleaded” in any context.

Of course, I must disclose that I grew up with, and still use an old English form that can be demonstrated by the words “gotten” and “boughten”. I also am recognized (derided?) for having a penchant for creating new words and idiomatic phrases which should exist but that do not. So take my pled/pleaded song and dance with a shaker of salt.

@Douglas Bryant - I find it disheartening and sad that our news organizations feel the need to "adapt to the global marketplace" instead of using correct grammar and setting a higher standard. I actually get goosebumps when I hear someone say "that's so fun!" as our local news anchor did recently.

I remember, when I was a child, even Ralph Cramden on the Honeymooners used correct English - if he didn't, Alice corrected him. People used to strive to speak well and properly. That isn't the case anymore.

Our youth cannot spell or write and they certainly cannot speak properly. Our media is very much to blame for this as they "adapt" instead of lead the way. It is yet another black mark against our school systems in the US that these university graduates (and they almost always are if they are practicing journalists) have managed to obtain a degree without first obtaining an education.

A rerun of a foolish sitcom was on last night and the running gag of the show was the majority of the friends making fun of one whenever he spoke well, quoted literature, or referenced something other than drinking beer, chasing women, and "robot wrestling." I turned off the sitcom. If, however, I turn off everything that offends me in the same manner, I will be left with nothing but the History Channel.

I don't agree that "pled" is less emotional than "pleaded." I think they carry equal "emotional" weight, if any. Only context can increase or decrease the emotional impact of either, as in your on-his-knees example.

In the context of legal defense, Merriam-Webster defines "plea" as:

(1) : a defendant's answer to a plaintiff's declaration in common-law practice
(2) : an accused person's answer to a charge or indictment in criminal practice

To plead, in this sense, is simply to enter a plea. No begging is implied. Regarding the past tense of "plead," Bryan A. Garner, in his excellent A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, has the following to say:

"Traditionally speaking, 'pleaded' is the best past-tense and past participle form."

Also:

"'Pled,' dating from the 16th century, is nearly obsolete in British English, except as a dialectical word. Nor is it considered quite standard in American English, though it is a common variant in legal usage."

That the word "pled" has fallen out of favor is unlikely part of some “grammar correctness” putsch. It seems far more likely that American news organizations are simply adapting to the global marketplace by adopting the more widely accepted usage.