When a person receives their just deserts—or is it just desserts—they get what they deserve. But which one of those is correct?
A desert is a region so arid because of little rainfall that it supports only sparse and widely spaced vegetation or no vegetation at all. Very few life forms exist in a desert because of lack of water and absence of soil.
A dessert is cake, pie, fruit, pudding, ice cream, etc., served as the final course of a meal.
A menu could contain just desserts, but when someone gets what they deserve, they get their just deserts.
From looking at those definitions, just desserts would look to be the appropriate one. But there is an obsolete meaning of desert that not many people know. Desert (pronounced the same way as dessert) also means something deserved or merited.
I understand why many people believe that the proper way to spell it is just desserts. So how can you remember which one is correct? Simple. Think of just deserts by its definition: when someone gets what they deserve (one ‘s’), they get their just deserts.
According to The Idioms: Largest Idioms Dictionary, neither way of writing it is wrong. Why? Because writing it the wrong way is so commonly seen today. As an editor and a writer, I do not agree with that.
Garner’s Modern English Usage, 4th Edition doesn’t agree with that either, unless just desserts is being used as a playful pun. How would one do that? Have one of your characters open a candy store, cookie store, or bakery named Just Desserts.
The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th Edition also agrees with Garner’s Modern English Usage. Look at section 5.250: Just deserts is something that is deserved. Desserts are sweet treats.
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Writing Prompts
1) Create a character that does open a store named Just Desserts. Is it a restaurant where one orders from a menu and sits down to eat inside? If it is a restaurant, is anything besides sweets and desserts sold?
Or is it a bakery-type store where one orders the sweets to take home?
Is this store a front? Is the real business seeing that those who do wrong get their just deserts? How is this done?
What is the reason this character named this place of business Just Desserts?
2) Create a world where both spellings are correct. If one has done something bad, they would get their just deserts. If one has done something good, they would get their just desserts.
Since just deserts is the correct way to spell the idiom, I feel it is only right to end this article with some dessert idioms.
Dessert Idioms:
A cherry on top is the flourish that caps something off, much like a cherry tops off an ice cream sundae.
If something is as easy as pie, it is extremely easy, requiring little skill or effort.
If you have a sweet tooth, you have a propensity and preference for eating sugary foods.
To have one’s cake and eat it too is to have in one’s possession something and be able to use it or exploit it; to have it both ways. (Usually stated in the negative.)
Icing on the cake is an extra enhancement. It is an additional benefit or positive aspect to something that is already considered positive or beneficial
If something is a piece of cake, it is a very easy task or accomplishment.
A piece of the pie is a share or part of something.
To sugarcoat something is to make something bad, unpleasant, or dissatisfactory easier to cope with, endure, or accept.
That’s the way the cookie crumbles means you have to accept the way things happen or develop, even if it’s not what you wanted.
I just love to read this piece of writing – great research buddy – you will get your just deserts for this. 😉