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Pled

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Guy Barry

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Nov 15, 2012, 11:48:16 AM11/15/12
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They're having a discussion on the radio at the moment about whether this is
the correct past tense of "plead". I'm not entirely sure. I think I'd
normally say "pleaded", but maybe there's a distinction between the legal
sense and the everyday sense of "implored". What do people think?

--
Guy Barry

Peter Duncanson [BrE]

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Nov 15, 2012, 12:29:08 PM11/15/12
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The OED says:

Inflections: Past tense and past participle pleaded,
(chiefly Sc. and U.S.) pled.


--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

R H Draney

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Nov 15, 2012, 12:34:32 PM11/15/12
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Guy Barry filted:
This people thinks it's one of those perfectly good English words that looks
like it's made up if you just stare at it for a few seconds....

Like "stare" and "just"....r


--
Me? Sarcastic?
Yeah, right.

Harrison Hill

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Nov 15, 2012, 1:03:20 PM11/15/12
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Pled looks and sounds wrong. "He pleaded for his life" and "He pleaded
guilty" are very natural-sounding to me.

Steve Hayes

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Nov 15, 2012, 1:17:29 PM11/15/12
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Like "proved" and "proven".


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

Athel Cornish-Bowden

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Nov 15, 2012, 1:21:04 PM11/15/12
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> On Thu, 15 Nov 2012 16:48:16 -0000, "Guy Barry"
> <guy....@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> They're having a discussion on the radio at the moment about whether this is
>> the correct past tense of "plead". I'm not entirely sure. I think I'd
>> normally say "pleaded", but maybe there's a distinction between the legal
>> sense and the everyday sense of "implored". What do people think?

I've heard "pled" (probably in the US), but I find it sounds very odd.
I'd always say "pleaded".

--
athel

Nasti J

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Nov 15, 2012, 2:08:59 PM11/15/12
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On Nov 15, 11:21 am, Athel Cornish-Bowden <acorn...@imm.cnrs.fr>
wrote:

> I've heard "pled" (probably in the US), but I find it sounds very odd.
> I'd always say "pleaded".

would you say "leaded," as in "Where he leaded, I followed."?

Frank S

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Nov 15, 2012, 2:20:38 PM11/15/12
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"Athel Cornish-Bowden" <acor...@imm.cnrs.fr> wrote in message
news:agkq4f...@mid.individual.net...
Neither of them sounds all that good to me; when writing reports for the
courts I tried to avoid them by saying, "... entered a plea of ... "
"... had pled ... " didn't seem so bad, but still makes my nose wrinkle.


--
Frank ess

Athel Cornish-Bowden

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Nov 15, 2012, 3:55:38 PM11/15/12
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What on earth relevance does that have?


--
athel

James Silverton

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Nov 15, 2012, 4:13:12 PM11/15/12
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I'd completely forgotten that the South British use "pleaded" instead of
"pled". I suppose that's the fault of a Scottish education and spending
most of my life since in the US.

--
Jim Silverton (Potomac, MD)

Extraneous "not" in Reply To.

Glenn Knickerbocker

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Nov 15, 2012, 5:58:52 PM11/15/12
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I bed that necklace.
I ded the house to my nephew.
I hed your advice.
I ned a few more days.
I sed the random number generator with my birthdate.
I wed the garden.

ŹR

Stan Brown

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Nov 15, 2012, 6:12:18 PM11/15/12
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I had occasion to look this up a couple of years ago, and I've just
refreshed my memory. AHD4 says "pleaded or pled".

--
"The difference between the /almost right/ word and the /right/ word
is ... the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning."
--Mark Twain
Stan Brown, Tompkins County, NY, USA http://OakRoadSystems.com

JOF

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Nov 15, 2012, 6:51:39 PM11/15/12
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On Thu, 15 Nov 2012 16:48:16 -0000, "Guy Barry"
All the dictionaries I looked at show both pleaded and pled as past
tenses, with no suggestion of preference for different uses. To add to
the complication, "plead", read (red) as "pled", shows up as past
tense too.

--
John
Message has been deleted

Robert Bannister

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Nov 15, 2012, 10:14:47 PM11/15/12
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North American dictionaries or other?
I also wondered about "plead" read as "pled", but I'll stick to
"pleaded" in my own language.

--
Robert Bannister

Guy Barry

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Nov 15, 2012, 11:35:04 PM11/15/12
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"Glenn Knickerbocker" wrote in message
news:z6Gdnck_AaI07jjN...@bestweb.net...
Apart from the first, those are all verbs in "-eed", not "-ead". (Although
we have "speed"/"sped", "bleed"/"bled".)

--
Guy Barry

Glenn Knickerbocker

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Nov 16, 2012, 12:34:08 AM11/16/12
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On Thu, 15 Nov 2012 18:41:59 -0800, D. Stussy wrote:
>In contrast, all other English verbs ending -ead DO have past participles
>ending -ed.

Oh, I forgot, I also kned the bread.

ŹR Blather, Rinse, Repeat.
http://users.bestweb.net/~notr/telecom.html

Guy Barry

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Nov 16, 2012, 12:39:39 AM11/16/12
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"D. Stussy" wrote in message news:k84959$d5n$1...@snarked.org...

> In contrast, all other English verbs ending -ead DO have past participles
> ending -ed.

> To lead come to mind. To read doesn't follow the pattern in spelling to
> distinguish it from the color red, but in pronunciation, it does follow
> the inflection.

Apart from those two (or one-and-a-half), are there in fact any others? I
can't think of any (although I could add "feed" to my earlier list of
"-eed"/"-ed" pairs).

> However, I have heard that "to plead" actually has French origins, not Old
> English, so pleaded, not pled, might be correct. However, I would use
> pled because that is what seems correct to me based on the pattern, and I
> say that it's origin of introduction into English makes no difference.

I believe that "strive/strove/striven" is an example of a verb from French
that inflects by vowel mutation, though my dictionary suggests it may
ultimately be of Germanic origin.

--
Guy Barry

Message has been deleted

Whiskers

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Nov 17, 2012, 10:56:29 AM11/17/12
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I'd always taken "pled" to be the AmE spelling of "plead" in the past
tense, and an indication that the AmE pronounciation matches their spelling
whereas BrE accepts a past tense that rhymes with "fed" or with "feed".
(The latter being somewhat rare, but I'm sure I've heard it).

"Pleaded" is something that was done repeatedly or in a prolonged
manner - while it was being done, it was "pleading". Once completed, the
plea has been ple[a]d.

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

Mike L

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Nov 17, 2012, 6:24:41 PM11/17/12
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Barrister daughter never says "pled", any more than I would.

--
Mike.

Jack Campin

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Nov 19, 2012, 4:28:50 AM11/19/12
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>>>> They're having a discussion on the radio at the moment about
>>>> whether this is the correct past tense of "plead".
>>> All the dictionaries I looked at show both pleaded and pled as past
>>> tenses, with no suggestion of preference for different uses.
>> North American dictionaries or other?
> I'd always taken "pled" to be the AmE spelling of "plead" in the past
> tense, and an indication that the AmE pronounciation matches their spelling
> whereas BrE accepts a past tense that rhymes with "fed" or with "feed".

You mean southern English middle-class dialect, not "BrE" whatever
the hell that is.

"Pled" is standard in Scots and Scottish English. I suspect its
boundary isogloss is a long way south of the border.

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