Q. I would like to know who, when, and why the word pled was changed to pleaded as the past tense of the word plead. Is there a panel of little old men somewhere that decided that pled could not be used anymore?

A. A Nexis database search of U.S. newspapers and wire stories suggests that since at least 1969 pleaded has been far more common in use as a past tense for plead than has pled. The past tense variant plead (pronounced like pled) is also far more common than pled, but is still not as common as pleaded.

Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage provides the following information on the past tense forms of plead:

Plead belongs to the same class of verbs as bleed, lead, speed, read, and feed, and like them it has a past and past participle with a short vowel spelled pled or sometimes plead. Competing with the short-vowel form from the beginning was a regular form pleaded. Eventually pleaded came to predominate in mainstream British English, while pled retreated into Scottish and other dialectical use. Through Scottish immigration or some other means, pled reached America and became established here.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, pled was attacked by many American [grammar] commentators perhaps because it was not in good British use. . . . In spite of occasional backward-looking by a commentator or two, it is fully respectable today. Both pled (or plead) and pleaded are in good use in the U.S. Pled seems still to be current in Scottish use.

While Nexis does reveal a marked drop-off in the editorial preference for the past tense variant plead over the last 30 to 35 years, it appears that pleaded has been widely used throughout that same time (at least in print media). Despite this preference, however, pled and plead remain perfectly acceptable past tense forms, though they are somewhat less common.

Q. Why is the letter "b" silent in words like lamb and comb? And what is the name for the science that covers this topic?

A. This process is called apocope (pronounced \uh-PAH-kuh-pee\), and the science that covers this, broadly, is called linguistics. More specifically, this particular phenomenon would be studied under the subfield of historical linguistics, or even more specifically, historical phonology.

Q. Distaff refers to the woman's side of the family. I can't find a comparable term in the dictionary for the man's side of the family. Does such a term exist?

A. Yes: sword side. Sword side is not used nearly as often as distaff, so it appears only in our unabridged dictionary, Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged.