Pleaded vs. Pled

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi.

Who is this?

This is Matt from New Holstein, Wisconsin.

New Holstein, Wisconsin. Where is that?

It’s kind of in the northeast side of the state between Lake Winnebago and Lake Michigan.

Matt, what is on your mind?

On my mind is something that I’ve probably noticed in the last decade or so, is that people have stopped using pled, and they almost universally use pleaded now for whenever they’re talking about court summaries and stuff like that. It’s always pleaded, where I know people used to say pled.

Pleaded, like pleaded guilty.

Yes.

Martha, are you thinking what I’m thinking?

I’m thinking what you’re thinking, Grant.

Matt, the really weird thing is that pleaded is the traditional form.

That is weird.

Isn’t that weird?

But more and more people are using pled. So I can’t really come down hard and say don’t ever use pled. Although a lot of authorities will tell you that. The Chicago Manual of Style says avoid pled. Even the very conservative sources like Brian Garner in his Modern American Usage say that pleaded is perfectly fine. Brian Garner is also the editor of Black’s Law Dictionary. So he’s not only a lawyer, but he’s the guy who edited the book about legal terms.

Although, Martha, plead is a little more common outside of law, right?

I hear plead more and more, actually.

So that’s funny that you’re hearing…

It’s the opposite experience.

Yeah.

I feel like growing up I heard plead all the time, and now I hear nothing but pleaded. And so I thought maybe, you know, the Chicago style guide had come out with a new edition where they had said pleaded is the more preferred pronunciation. But if it’s always been that way, then maybe I just grew up in, you know, the backwoods of Indiana, which I did.

And I can understand why you would feel that way, because it seems like a word that would be formed by analogy, like read and read and feed and fed.

So you think plead and plead.

Yeah, plead and bled.

But the traditional form is pleaded.

More and more you’re hearing pled, and I’m not much of a stickler about that.

How about you, Grant?

In this case, pleaded is fine, and pled is fine. But if you’re in a courtroom, you should use pleated.

Okay.

Well, hopefully I will never be in that situation.

Exactly, Matt.

Just stay out of court.

Stay out of trouble.

Behave yourself up there in New Holstein.

I will.

All right.

Well, thanks for calling.

Thank you, sir, for your call.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

You can call the Pleading Heart Grammarians here at 1-877-929-9673 or email us. The address is words@waywordradio.org.