The word "lede" was introduced in the 1970s as an alternative spelling for the word "lead" to resolve ambiguity between the leading paragraph of an article and the metal "lead" which was used in typesetting. It didn't even become popular until the 1980s.

In fact, prior to the 1980s, it was indeed spelled "bury the lead". Here for example is an excerpt from a book about newswriting from the 1970s which uses "lead" as the spelling:

https://books.google.ca/books?id=3IxbAAAAMAAJ&q=%22bury+the+...

Meanwhile, the group "Led Zeppelin" also avoided the ambiguous spelling to prevent people from pronouncing their name "leed zeppelin". You can't win with lead.

Huh, didn't know that! Via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led_Zeppelin#Formation:_1966%E... :

> One account of how the new band's name was chosen held that Moon and Entwistle had suggested that a supergroup with Page and Beck would go down like a "lead balloon", an idiom for being very unsuccessful or unpopular.[21] The group dropped the 'a' in lead at the suggestion of [manager] Peter Grant, so that those unfamiliar with the term would not pronounce it "leed".[22] The word "balloon" was replaced by "zeppelin", a word which, according to music journalist Keith Shadwick, brought "the perfect combination of heavy and light, combustibility and grace" to Page's mind.[21]

It certainly doesn't help that in a rock context, "lead guitar" is very much pronounced with a long e! And one could be forgiven for thinking that a formation of flying things would necessarily have one member in the lead position. I'm glad they had the foresight to keep us from being led astray!

> And one could be forgiven for thinking that a formation of flying things would necessarily have one member in the lead position.

Indeed. In which case you would have the lead zeppelin, and the led zeppelins.

Now that's what I call burying the lead!

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

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?

That's a pretentious, anachronistic affectation - the phrase predates the use of "lede".