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Quick and Dirty Grammar Tip: Pleaded
Sarah from the University of Kentucky asked, "What is the correct past perfect continuous form of the verb to
plead? Should I say have plead guilty, have pled guilty, or have pleaded guilty? Or, is any choice
correct?"
Although have pled and have pleaded are in common use, language sticklers prefer have pleaded
Here are some of the more interesting examples from recent news stories
(with emphasis added):
"In a wonder of defense procurement, the owners of a small South Carolina company have pleaded
guilty to charging the Pentagon nearly $1 million dollars for shipping two 19-cent washers to Texas." -- The Blog of Legal Times
"The three
captains have pleaded guilty to charges of feeding alligators." -- CBS4.com
"Two US men accused with Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick of organising dog fights have pleaded
guilty." -- BBC News
A Google News search returns about 600 entries for "pled guilty" and about 37,000 entries for
"pleaded guilty."
Plead is not used as a past perfect continuous verb;
in other words, you shouldn't say have plead guilty.
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School
Legal Lad - Presumption of
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Book Winners
All newsletter subscribers are automatically entered in the Grammar Girl book giveaway. (There's no set schedule; we just give
away books when we can.)
This week's winners get a copy of Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips to Clean Up Your Writing, which is now
available as both a downloadable audiobook and a CD. Congratulations to
the winners:
- Jill Schoenberg
- Scott Little
- Marisa Allen
Grammar Girl Flickr Group
I've created a Grammar Girl group at Flickr where you can post your grammar-related photos. It's primarily a place to post photos of signs or
headlines with grammar errors, but I'd also love to see photos of you holding up my book in a bookstore or wearing an aardvark t-shirt.
Award Winners
Thank you for your votes!
Grammar Girl won Best Education Podcast in the Podcast
Awards!
We also did well in the Podcast Peer Awards. Grammar Girl won Favorite Audio Show and The Mighty Mommy won Best New Podcast.
Listener Feedback
I received two especially fun notes from listeners about last week's asterisk
episode.
Chuck Tomasi wrote that he calls the feeling he gets when he
sees an asterisk with no corresponding note at the bottom of the page "asterexasperation," and Scott T. wrote that he calls such an isolated asterisk an "exasperisk."
Also, I was wrong when I said Barry Bonds had
just broken the record for most home runs in one season. As many listeners have pointed out, he broke that record in 2001. The record he broke
recently was for most home runs in a career. I apologize for the error.
In an instance of what now seems like foreshadowing, I once
told a TV news anchor that it would be ironic if I sent him an e-mail with lots of grammar errors, but it would not be ironic if I sent him an e-mail
with incorrect sports scores. You can see it on YouTube.
Best wishes, |
