Beta-Bitching #1: Getting the Lead Out

Homophones: words that sound the same, but are spelled different.  My personal Hell.  People get them wrong so often.  Why?  Simple answer: English is stupid.  While we’ve simplified the structure of the language from our Germanic roots, we’ve scraped in words and their structure from everywhere.  You can order teriyaki a la carte at a rodeo, en masse.  And we don’t always pronounce them in their original way either, substituting something more familiar or dropping sounds (like how we pronounce coyote like cayotee or cayote… I got called out once by a Mexican coworker for pronouncing burrito as bareedoe). 

So, in the end, we’ve got this crazy mishmash of words, some of which sound the same but look different, and others that are spelled the same and are pronounced differently.  And that’s where people run into trouble… There’s no real guidelines; you know this stuff or you don’t.

So let me talk to you about an error I see a lot of writers making, because it seems to come so naturally: led vs lead. 

For most circumstances, you need to get the lead out of your sentences… unless you’re talking about contamination, poison, or radiation, you’re probably going to be using led.

led: the past tense of the verb to lead (pronounced leed), to have brought someone to a place or conclusion 

lead (pronounced led): noun, a heavy metal

Here’s how to use them properly:
He led them behind a lead wall to shield them from the radiation.

He urged them to hurry: “Get the lead out!  (This phrase, by the way, is shortened from, "Get the lead out of your pants/shoes," to mean, "Stop moving as if you're weighted down.")

Can you see where people confuse the two?  I can, because we’ve got another verb that looks like lead should act the same as, but doesn’t: read (reed) and read (red).

By the way, we also have another homophone for this nowadays, when we talk about LED lights.  (LED is short for light-emitting diode, btw.)  Similar to the word laser—which is likewise an acronym—people already pronounce and type it as “led lights,” rather than bothering with periods between the letters or capitalization, or pronouncing it letter by letter.  Evolving language!

That’s it for this Beta-Bitching!  Hope to see you next time!

Do you have a grammar pet-peeve or a question about usage?  Let me know in the comments!


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