Leding with my lead

majorbabs · **Posted:** Wed Aug 27, 2003 1:17 pm

Why is the lead paragraph called the lede and not the lead? This is probably explained the first day in J-School, but I missed it and just wondered. Thanks.

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Wed Aug 27, 2003 2:04 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by majorbabs:
Why is the lead paragraph called the lede and not the lead? This is probably explained the first day in J-School, but I missed it and just wondered. Thanks.<hr></blockquote>It's often spelled "lede" to "avoid confusion" with "lead," which is a term associated with hot type and, therefore, is obsolete. I never liked "lede" and use it reluctantly. I think we're all bright enough to use "lead." There aren't any printers around to confuse.

Wayne Countryman · **Posted:** Wed Aug 27, 2003 2:12 pm

In the "hot type" days, when entire pages were typed on Linotype machines according to handwritten instructions atop paper copy, "lead" referred to the metal; bits of it were inserted between paragraphs to provide spacing."Lede" referred to the "grafs" at the beginning of the story. This was to avoid confusion for the Linotype operators, who worked in the composing room, not the newsroom. (The only Linotype machines I've seen are quaint items on display in lobbies. Still, I was taught to use "lede" rather than "lead." Don't know when "lede" fell out of favor.)On an unrelated note: To this day, for reasons I don't know, many writers use "lead" for the past tense of "lead." This is plain wrong, while using "lede" for the first graf of a story probably seems to be an affectation to most in newsrooms.Also: When I attended J school a few decades ago, "lede" or "lead" referred to the top of the story, which might be the first graf or several, depending on the writer's approach.

SusanV · **Posted:** Wed Aug 27, 2003 2:26 pm

Lede doesn't bother me. Then again, we used to have an editor who wrote "hedes" instead of heds or heads.

majorbabs · **Posted:** Wed Aug 27, 2003 4:03 pm

Thanks to all of you for your help. Just as an afterthought, is it true that the phrase "mind your p's and q's" came as advice to a copy boy picking up a letter spill in the hot-type composing room? Seems good anyway -- and maybe something for Al's Morning Meeting.

KfitzR · **Posted:** Thu Aug 28, 2003 2:01 pm

I always understoon that minding p's and q's came from British pubs where the innkeeper kept a running tab on the pints and quarts consumed by his customers.
Would work in some of the newsrooms I've worked in as well as the spilled type theory.

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