ok I need to know the correct way of saying

a small group of people LED the way (this is how I would write it)

or should it be

a small group of people LEAD the way - it needs to be in the past tense, so surely this version is just referring to the metal

??

Hi Sneaks,

according to the Microsoft spell check it should be "He led the way", not to be confused with "He read the book".:-)

thanks rick - that was my initial thought, but the professor got it wrong mwahahahaha.

I won't add you as third author, sorry! But I will click the helpful user button!

Sneaks,

wait a minute.

I think there is often confusion regarding these kind of words and sometimes there are differences in UK - and American English.
Perhaps we got a linguist on-line who will correct me?!

Are you correcting your grammar?

I checked it in the Oxford dictionary and it is "He led the way".

Thanks Rick - I am technically correcting a professor's grammar for an article - not an academic one, a newspaper one. But it has my name on it and don't want to look like a mug in a grammatical way ;-)

I see,

funny that you have to do that.

I have learned that issues like style and grammar are probably as important as the actual content of the doctorate.

yup, 'led' it is, 'lead' is present or future tense for this verb :)