de-served desserts

[James Smith]

One is never too old to learn.  I've heard "justs
desserts" all my life without nary a thought as to how
receiving a dessert had a rational connection to
anything.



--- Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM> wrote:

> Joel S. Berson wrote:
> > At 1/4/2008 08:30 PM, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
> >
> >> "just desserts" has an ecdb entry:
> >>
> >>
> http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/english/599/dessert/
> >>
> >> (one of the comments mentions "just deserves",
> which doesn't yet have
> >> an entry.)
> >>
> >> i'm beginning to wonder whether there's any point
> in trying to
> >> maintain the ecdb, when people don't consult it.
> >>
> >
> > Irregardless, I wouldn't have looked at the
> eggcorn data base since,
> > in my ignorance, I have always assumed (presumably
> without ever
> > having both read and imprinted it!) that the
> expression was "just desserts".
> >
> > Joel
> >
> > P.S.  It wasn't until a few days ago that, having
> been informed I've
> > been wrong my whole life, I looked in a dictionary
> and found desert
> > n.1., pronounced identically to dessert.
> >
>
> Even though I'd read about this spelling issue
> before, I had forgotten
> about it until this thread came up. In the AHD,
> desert (deserved
> punishment) is a completely separate entry from
> desert (arid land), not
> simply a different meaning within a single entry.
>
> FWIW, I did consult the eggcorn database and cited
> it in response to
> Joel's e-mail. People who don't know they're using
> eggcorns are of
> course not going to use it. The most recent one I
> personally eliminated
> was "intense purposes", through stumbling on a
> prescriptivist's website. BB
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society -
> http://www.americandialect.org
>


James D. SMITH                 |If history teaches anything
South SLC, UT                  |it is that we will be sued
jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com     |whether we act quickly and decisively
                               |or slowly and cautiously.


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