Has anyone addressed this before? The past participle of "swim" is "swum." "Swam" is the simple past. You can say, "I swam three times last week" or "I have swum in that pool many times," but you can never say "I have swam ..." It's simply not correct English.
Sorry to be persnickety, but as a former book editor, it drives me crazy every time I see it, and I see it increasingly more often now that I spend so much time here.:nono:
I've been a part of Law enforcement for 15+ years now. It was always pled. This new pleaded has just taken off in the last few years and I can't stand it.
From the Columbia Journalism Review:
The O.E.D. traces “pled” to Scottish legal usage and dialect. The dictionary’s citations are balanced, and those for “pleaded,” by gum, include Blackstone, the giant of Western law.
Several references call “pled” colloquial, but a couple say it is established American usage. If so, it doesn’t seem frequent in any kind of formal writing, and the American press certainly isn’t sympathetic to it. A Nexis search turned up “pleaded” overwhelmingly.
That result is probably skewed, however. The Associated Press stylebook, the guide on such matters for most American newspapers, condemns “pled” as colloquial. And the New York Times stylebook, also influential, prescribes “pleaded” without comment.
There may be room for argument, and “pled” may gaining. It is certainly not irrational for the ear to prefer it to “pleaded.” But the strong preference here, and clearly the safer course in American journalistic writing early in the 21 st century, remains “pleaded.”
As the issue seems to create quite a furor, WestLaw and Lexis/Nexis searches have even been done to look at the usage in individual jurisdictions:
Volokh Conspiracy opened up a can of words when it asked "What is 'the correct past tense of the verb ‘plead’” (“pleaded” or “pled”)?" Eugene Volokh himself takes the view that both usages are standard and thus correct, and cites as evidence that a Westlaw search turned up 5017 uses of "pleaded", and 5573 of "pled".
Michigan, however, appears to have a different opinion. A search of the Michigan Supreme Court and Court of Appeals opinion database turns up 4761 instances of "pleaded" compared to just 491 cases of "pled". In Michigan, case closed.
In Texas, I have seen and heard them used interchangeably for the past 30 years and thus either usage sounds appropriate to me.
I will say that as I get older, I am less particular about language that I hear. As long as I understand the point being made, I don't worry about "who" or "whom", "seen" or "saw", or even "I" or "me." Language changes constantly and common usage determines what usage is "correct." The quote in my first post in this thread has been attributed to Winston Churchill. There is a dispute as to whether he ever said it, but it highlights the fact the he was a great communicator who did not let grammatical construction interfere with the thought communicated by his speech.
I have heard college grads saying " I seen". How did they get out of H S ?
Former Member
... Or the continued use of "insure" when "ensure" is the word that should have been used!
That one gets me going too. Must be more an American thing than UK, 'cos since I've been here, I constantly see people needing to insure that things get done.
So you're going to call State Farm to "insure" that your kid goes to bed on time?????
I don't know exactly why, but I think lots of people think "swum" is not a word. I guess it just seems a little ungainly.
My personal pet peeve is when people confuse the word "loose" for "lose."
The one that gets me is when someone says "he dived". No he dove. What happened to using the past tense correctly?!
