Grammar Girl here.

Today guest writer Bonnie Tringa is helping us talk about two sets of words that listeners

get confused, pleaded guilty or pleaded guilty, and use or utilize.

Mike from Georgia is transitioning from law enforcement to freelance writing, and wants

to know which is correct.

He pleaded guilty or pleaded guilty.

He says that some of the people he calls his hoitty, toyty friends claim that pleaded

is always right, but he's heard educated people use plaid.

Don't be afraid to argue with a grammar snob on this issue, because in America, Scotland

and some areas of the UK, you could use plaid if you wanted to, but you should also be prepared

to eventually concede.

I'm sure we've all heard this sentence, he pleaded guilty.

It seems to be a logical way to form the past tense of the verb to plead, just as it's

perfectly correct to write the past tense verb led in he led me away.

Today he leads, yesterday he led, no problem.

Of course hearing something doesn't make it right, so I checked my dictionary.

Indeed, it lists plaid as a valid past tense form or past participle of the verb to plead.

So grammar miscreants did not deviously gather together and make up that word to enrage

grammarians, but some grammarians are mad.

As far as I checked fall all along the spectrum of indignation, one flatly states the past tense

of plead is pleaded, not plaid.

Another Brian Garner acknowledges the existence of plaid, but it monishes us that pleaded is

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