This actually wasn't an entry that I'd planned to write. But after reading yet another argument over "just desserts" and "just deserts", I guess the editor in me cannot resist chipping in.
Well, it all stemmed from a commentary article in which the writer talked about a person getting his "just desserts". Under the comments section, one reader pointed out that it should be "just deserts" instead. Within moments, other Readers jumped in to pour scorn on the first reader's correction. Below is a little part of the thread (the rest of the conversation soon degraded into a slagging contest deemed unfit for reproduction):
| Who's smart, and who's stupid? |
I reckon you'd have come across a similar argument over this phrase before. So who is correct?
Before I continue, I just want to let you in on a small secret. In my editing work, whenever I come across a word or phrasing that I'm unsure if it should be written in one way or the other, my first impulse would be to run a Google search for both words/phrases to see which one gets more results.
No, that's not how I go about my editing, in case you are already shaking your head in disgust. That's just my preliminary level of checks, and something I would never regard as conclusive. But my point is, it does give me a hint of which one is more likely to be correct. After doing proper research to find out the right answer, I have realised that 99 per cent of the time, the right answer would indeed correspond with the Google Search that returned the most results. This isn't surprisingly really; I'm just working on the presumption that more people in the world use a word or phrase correctly rather that those who don't.
Here's an interesting find though:
A Google search of "just deserts" returns about 572,000 results.
A Google search of "just desserts" returns about 3,970,000 results.
Going by my usual presumption, the answer ought to be clear: "just desserts" is used far more often than "just deserts", making it the right way to spell it.
WRONG. It just turns out that "just desserts" falls within the one per cent of Google searches that show more results of a phrase being spelled incorrectly than it being spelled right.
Suffice for me to re-emphasise that "just deserts" is actually the technically correct phrase. I shall not go into details on why this is so. For that, I refer you to these links offering a good explanation:
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/just-deserts.html
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-does-just-deserts-mean.htm
So what can we take away from this? Firstly, don't always trust the masses. They don't get it right all the time.
But secondly, and more importantly, don't go up against the masses. What do I mean?
Let's say you want to use "just deserts" in your writing... do you really? It's a no-win situation—if you spell it the correct way, most readers will think you made a mistake and ridicule you for it. If you intentionally spell it the wrong (but widely accepted) way in order to suit your readers though, you won't be able to look yourself in the mirror knowing that you had compromised your lofty standards of proper English usage.
My advice: refrain from using "just deserts" altogether. It isn't that critical a phrase to use anyway. Simply stick to something like "(s)he got what (s)he deserved" instead, and the problem is solved.
