Spelling Biz

"The French don't care what you do, actually, as long as you pronounce it properly." -- Henry Higgins

A dictionary is a history book, not a law book. 

   Dictionaries were first gathered because a thriving merchant class wanted guidelines on how to pronounce words in the way the aristocracy spoke. Hence the term, derived from "diction."
   Linguistically, all dialects are equal. They all enable its speakers to communicate with other speakers of that dialect/language. The only reason some dialects have more prestige is because its speakers have more prestige, and that is a social judgment, not linguistic.
   Thus, when folks in a rising, thriving, upwardly mobile merchant "class" wanted to be perceived as cultured, they adopted the dialect of the more prestigious, wealthy group or "class."
   Today, however, dictionaries have become a compilation of socially accepted ways of spelling words. Again, it is not a law book, mandating ways that writers must spell any given word, but it is a history book, listing the ways skilled writers spell words.
   And if you expect logic in the ways words are spelled or pronounced, you will be disappointed.
   Example: Some lawyers may spell and pronounce the verb "plead" as "pled," while others will used "pleaded." Why? By analogy, the past tense of the word "bleed" is "bled," not "bleeded." And the past tense of "speed" is "sped," not "speeded." Likewise, the verb "breed" goes to the past tense "bred," not "breeded."
   At the same time, the past tense of the verb "lead" (rhymes with breed) is "led," not "leaded" (rhymes with breeded). However, if you mean the noun referring to the metal "lead," and a way of using that metal to attach something, as in "leaded" glass windows, the spelling is the same but the pronunciation is different.
   For a long time, dialects were seen to be geographical, markers of where a speaker lived. Eventually, however, linguists documented the reality that dialects also showed a speaker's social level. And some speakers adopt a more prestigious dialect depending on where they are and whom they want to impress.
   Example: Politicians running for office may speak one way in the halls of Congress, and quite another on the campaign trail, lest the folks down home think he's a snob.