Talk:just desserts
Add topicLatest comment: 17 years ago by Connel MacKenzie in topic just desserts
The following information passed a request for deletion.
This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.
- Keep - This is a very common misspelling based on how the word is pronounced. This page can be useful to many people. --Arctic.gnome 18:47, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. Very common...I thought it was the correct spelling until now. --Enginear 19:29, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. I also thought that's how it was spelled. In fact, "just desserts" gets 3–4 times the Google-hits that "just deserts" does, so I think labeling it "misspelling" might be pedantry rather than accuracy. (It's a tough call, though, since "just deserts" does get somewhat more b.g.c. hits than "just desserts", even though the latter is inflated by a huge number of puns.) —RuakhTALK 20:43, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
- Keep Again, that's how I would think to spell it myself. This really confuses me, because in every situation that I can recall hearing the phrase, the emphasis has always been on the second syllable of the second word, implying a delicious snack instead of an arid wasteland. Atelaes 20:48, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
- You're right about the pronunciation. The phrase uses (as I discovered yesterday) a noun desert from the same roots as the verb deserve (originally Latin deservire) and therefore pronounced similarly to dessert, rather than as its homograph which has different etymology (originally from Latin deserere). Intriguingly, there are at least four books entitled Just Desserts and at a quick glance, I'm not sure that more than two of them relate to food! --Enginear 20:04, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
- Keep this, it is a common misspelling. -- Beobach972 23:36, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. Why was this even nominated? Removing tag. — Paul G 16:34, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
- Waitasec; why is this listed as the "wrong" spelling at all? The proscribed definition at just deserts / desert is for an obsolete (or at the very least, archaic) and very rare meaning. As the phrase has evolved, the connotations have as well. That doesn't mean the obsolete etymological meaning is still valid. As for desert, that definition should not be listed as the primary definition! --Connel MacKenzie 06:33, 5 May 2007 (UTC)