A Good Year for the Outlaw

Today on ESPN, I heard a reporter use the term “pled guilty”, and to me it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard. It did not used to bother me, but then an editor – and he was a good one - at the newspaper I wrote for in Carson City, NV, explained to me why it should bother me.

I said “I think he pled guilty,” one day in the newsroom in response to a question, and was quickly admonished by the aforementioned editor.  He said that “pleaded” was the proper legal term, that “pled” was another of those lazy versions of words that, while incorrect, were becoming accepted simply because people used them and those advocating correct usage were being outnumbered.

He pointed to “chomping at the bit”, which is also wrong. It’s “champing at the bit”. That’s the correct term. But it’s changed over the years, and now the wrong version is the acceptable version.

As far as “pled” goes, he said this: it’s “deeded,” not “ded”; “kneaded,” not “kned”; “seeded,” not “sed”; “weeded,” not “wed.”

I’ll never forget that conversation, and that explanation.

A search online shows that Bryan A. Garner, the editor of Black’s Law Dictionary and the author of Garner’s Modern American Usage, says this: “Traditionally speaking, ‘pleaded’ is the best past-tense and past-participial form. Commentators on usage have long said so, pouring drops of vitriol onto ‘has pled’ and ‘has plead.’”

So that’s where I stand on pleaded vs. pled. Billy, other journalists, your thoughts please?