Editing Gripe Du Jour: Lead vs. Led
Today’s grammar lesson:
The past tense of to lead is led, not lead. I know “led” and “lead” (as in pencil lead) sound the same, but they are not spelled the same.
If somebody is asking a question, do not use said or says as your dialog tag. “What are you doing?” she said is incorrect. “What are you doing?” she asked is correct.
If your story is written in the simple past tense and you’re describing events that occur earlier than that, you must use past perfect:
He walked into his room and paused. He had locked the door that morning, hadn’t he?
Please review the previous lesson on simple past versus past perfect and take notes.
And finally, in fiction and in most day-to-day writing, it is not necessary to capitalize common plant or animal names unless they contain a proper noun (e.g., Spanish moss, Russian greyhound). I realize this is a matter of some dispute, but it seems to me that unless scientific clarity is absolutely necessary, vernacular names should be treated as common nouns. So, Pinus virginian and Iguana iguana, but scrub pine and green iguana. It’s less distracting to the reader; capitalized words call attention to themselves and should be reserved for Special Instances. 
Grammar Geek will go back to work now.
drupagliassotti @ August 22, 2008