I managed to find the online link to this article here. Because I’m moving at the weekend ( yet again ), I have been spending some time with a bunch of newspapers. So I quickly looked at the headline, got ready to tear the page in half, and stopped. ‘Just desserts’, I thought to myself. That can’t be. Surely it should be ‘just deserts’? And then I got confused. Why would the Sunday Times make such a silly mistake? And I thought that perhaps they are correct, and apologised to the gentleman in the picture (you have to click on the link to see the gentleman).
But then I needed to know what the correct spelling is, or should be. So I picked up my copy of Troublesome Words and saw that I was correct the first time.
This is not the first time I see ‘just desserts’ in print when it should be ‘just deserts’. The first time I saw this error, was in a Shapiro cartoon.
I don’t blame these subs and writers. I promise. But it’s just too easy to make your publication look silly. I wonder what will happen if I were to write in to tell them about the error? Will anyone bother to correct it? It’s too late to correct the paper version; the online version would definitely benefit from it.
You might as well know now. Some of my colleagues call me a Grammar Nazi; however, I call myself a Grammar Democrat. There are certain mistakes I’ll forgive an accidental writer. Accidental writers are people for whom writing is not a profession. So if you’re not a freelance writer, copywriter, professional blogger, or a journalist, I will not expect you to know the difference.
But if you are one of the above mentioned, I’ll expect to see perfect copy. Typos are fine; ignorance is not.
She whispers to words 