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Title

PSA: The past tense of lead is not lead

Description

The article <a href="https://thebaffler.com/blog/drone-frost" author="Amber A'Lee Frost" source="The Baffler">Office-Droned Out</a> is interesting enough and by one of my favorite writers at <i>The Baffler</i>, but she, too, makes the mistake of writing <i>lead</i> as the past tense of <i>lead</i>. <bq>My inability to pay attention to details or engage in repetitive work <hl>led</hl><del>lead</del> to (or perhaps only exacerbated; it’s a chicken-and-egg thing) an anxious, grinding depression, and the sneaking suspicion I was actually totally unemployable.</bq> Please stop doing this. It's confusing. I can put up with other transmogrifications of the grammar and spelling that I learned (oh so long ago) and to which I've become accustomed, but this is not an improvement. It leads the poor reader of English in the wrong direction. It's a pity because the piece was otherwise well-written and copy-edited. I mention this case because it feels like we now have an entire generation for whom the spelling of the past tense of <i>lead</i> was never <i>led</i>. I'm not a prescriptivist, but I don't think everything should be descriptivist, either. It has to make sense and to not conflict with other elements of language. I'm a software programmer and this is more akin to a compiler error than a warning.