A new profile on General Mark Milley delved into his efforts to preside over the military despite his numerous concerns with former President Donald Trump.
Which noun form of lead can be "buried," such that the sentence has prepositional phrase agreement? Talkin' 'bout physically burying something underneath backfill.
With lead, I'll concede people have fucked it up enough in modern usage to warrant entry in the dictionary, but it's a quatiary definition, 2(f)(1). Even that definition literally ends in a coda, says "go look up LEDE, you f'n goofball."
And for lede? It's not numbered, lettered, and numbered again, because it's the only thing lede means. "Bury the lede." What a sentence. Evokes the typesetter sitting over the moveable type press, laying out every character, with the most important feature of the story down, below a bunch of fill. It's how you should write. Clear, concise. Good diction. I may die on this hill a hero.
Acceptable maybe, but one is more correct. And lede is more correct because of what it evokes, the typesetter moving the lines of movable type, literally burying the lede.
It was in fact used by typesetters as jargon in the linotype era. And when it entered the lexicon more broadly, it had a very specific meaning, the same meaning which it still has.
Listen. It's fine if you want to use a less correct word. When it comes to word choice, as matters of diction as opposed to word choice as matters of style, I go to the dictionary, specifically Webster. For style, I go to CMoS, which says either is acceptable.
When you go to the dictionary for lead, this definition of "lead" is quaternary, was added in 2008, and tells you to go look at "lede." Lede is the exact correct word choice for the phrase "bury the lede."
I can't find the original comment but I think somebody said once that the real sign of the strength of the US military is that they can set up a Taco Bell anywhere on Earth in 72 hours.
The average teenager has no realization about that stuff. The three main motivators for military service were (and remain) escaping poverty, service tradition, and ideology. And once you've enlisted the only choice is war or prison.
I have a lot more scorn for the adults that let Bush do it then I do for kids who didn't have a chance in hell of realizing what this country does with soldiers and veterans.
The overhead to support one soldier is massive. But if we want to start referring to soldiers as killers, disparage the military, and make people think badly of them, then why spend so much money on it? Or do we just want to entice people to do a job everyone will look down on, blow a bunch of money on something everyone thinks is terrible, and treat those people like shit?