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by sharkjacobs 626 days ago
I would argue that there's no reason to continue misspelling "lead" as "lede" outside of a context where you are worried about conflating the "lead" paragraph with the "lead" piece of metal which was used as a spacer between words in a Linotype machine
2 comments

It's not a misspelling, it's jargon. FWIW I prefer it and I think it's valuable to preserve in part because people who dig into it a bit learn about the history of the term and practice of putting publications (especially newspapers) together.
You can prefer one spelling over another, absolutely, but it's a bit too strong to say someone using the actual word "lead" is incorrect.
Oh, I wouldn't correct someone for saying "lead" -- or "intro" or any other variant that makes sense. Leed is right out, though.
If the choice is betwixt overloading a morpheme and having two distinct I shall take the latter.
Right. Saying people outside the industry should feel free to use ‘lead’ instead of ‘lede’ is like saying people outside the tech business should feel free to talk about ‘kilobites’.
>I would argue that there's no reason to continue misspelling "lead" as "lede"

Does it still count as misspelling when "lede" is in the dictionary (Merriam Websters & Cambridge & Oxford)?

Pretty sure it's just a word at that point, right?