Concerning Ledes. The "lede" is the beginning of a news piece, and it is frequently in the first paragraph, as in an essay. The term "lede" is an intentional misspelling of "lead" to avoid misunderstanding in the days when lead type was used for printing. Today, lead typesetting is done with hot metal, so the two words can be used interchangeably. Lede has been used since at least 1539 (according to the Oxford English Dictionary). It comes from the name of a newspaper that was published in Leipzig between 1770 and 1773. The OED says this word is derived from German, but I think it's related to Latin legere ("to read"). So, a "lady's ear" is a small ornamented box used to store jewelry. A "ledger" is a book containing accounts. And a "lede" is the first sentence or paragraph of a newspaper article.