Quote:
Originally Posted by IamNotKenKing
You’re probably right. The Oxford and merriam-Webster dictionaries are probably wrong.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/word...de-versus-lead
In journalism, the lede refers to the introductory section of a news story that is intended to entice the reader to read the full story. It appears most frequently in the idiom bury the lede. |
Yes, the introductory part of the story is the lead, because that's what you lead off with. One still says ‘lead paragraph’, ‘leading article’, ‘lead story’ (in a newscast), etc. The spelling ‘lede’ originated for technical reasons in newspaper work, and spread to other media as an affectation.
Cf. Oxford:
Quote:
|
1950s: alteration of lead 1, first used in instructions to printers, in order to distinguish the word from text to be printed.
|
The spelling ‘lede’ was not registered in dictionaries until 2008.
By the way, Oxford still regards ‘lede’ as an Americanism; and even in that particular usage, gives ‘lead’ as an alternate spelling.
Don't try to con an old linguist.
Edit to add:
This is from Merriam-Webster's in-depth article on lead/lede:
Quote:
|
Spelling the word as lede helped copyeditors, typesetters, and others in the business distinguish it from its homograph lead (pronounced \led\ ), which also happened to refer to the thin strip of metal separating lines of type (as in a Linotype machine). Since both uses were likely to come up frequently in a newspaper office, there was a benefit to spelling the two words distinctly.
|
The silly thing is that the spelling ‘lede’ only caught on when Linotypes were being replaced by phototypesetters, and lead (the metal) was no longer used in printing.
Harold Owens, after much research,
observes:
Quote:
Some years ago, researching the evolution of “objective journalism,” I cracked open many of these old books, and something struck me — in none of these old books did any author spell the word “lede.” They all spell it “lead.”
It was then I realized, there is no historic basis for the spelling of a lead as “lede.” “Lede” is an invention of linotype romanticists, not something used in newsrooms of the linotype era.
|