You Can Lead a Horse, But Not a Grammar Slob

We read about them all the time; I read about one yesterday. “You can lead a horse to water...” and the horse has been led — not “lead”. The past tense of lead (the verb) is “led”. Think of it this way: lead, the present tense verb (pronounced like “feed”) is what you do with a horse. Lead, the noun (pronounced like “bed”) is the heavy metal. Oh, you want a “rule”? Not here! Fool around with the pronunciation of words such as head, heed, mead, dead, speed, wed, weed, keyed, bead, creed, deed... see the problem?