Here's one that bugs me...

kristie911 said:

When reading news articles they always say, "The suspect pleaded guilty to..."

Isn't pled actually the right form of plead for that sentence? And if I'm wrong, can someone explain?

It's one of those little things that I always notice and it always bugs me!

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It would seem that, primarily in legal circles, you are in the minority in disliking "pleaded". Check out this web page: http://www.margaret-marks.com/Transblawg/archives/000881.html

The Merriam-Webster dictionary (online) lists the inflected froms of "plead" as follows: "pleaded, or pled, and also plead".

I actually prefer pleaded because it seems like the most intuitive form, pled the least intuitive, and plead is somewhere in the middle.

CaroGirl said:

I actually prefer pleaded because it seems like the most intuitive form, pled the least intuitive, and plead is somewhere in the middle.

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I feel like "pled" is the most intuitive, following along the pattern of verbs like "speed, sped", "lead, led", "read, read [rEd]".

PastMidnight said:

I feel like "pled" is the most intuitive, following along the pattern of verbs like "speed, sped", "lead, led", "read, read [rEd]".

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I guess "intuitive" is a relative thing. I mean, typically, in this no-rules language of ours, ending verbs in -ed is often the safest bet that you're right. Listen to kids talk sometime: "I bringed it to school," "we runned as fast as we could," "he goed first, and that's not fair (wah!)."

English, whimsical little language, dontcha think? Reflect upon: say/said, do/did, go/went. crazy!

"Pled" is what they did - "Pleaded" was the act of doing it.

Just to add...

that's American English you're talking about. The rest of us don't use pled at all.

pdr said:

that's American English you're talking about. The rest of us don't use pled at all.

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Aha! No wonder I've never seen pled before (looks weird to me). Thanks!

pdr said:

that's American English you're talking about. The rest of us don't use pled at all.

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I don't know, I'm Australian and I would say "I pled guilty" ... or no-guilty as the case may be!