Desserts - the last or sweet course of a meal - is widely used and is pronounced the same way as the deserts in 'just deserts'. So, when hearing the phrase with the pronunciation like 'desserts', people think it must be spelled that way too. Today I found out that the idiom used for the notion of someone “getting what’s coming to them”, whether good or bad, is actually “just deserts”, not “just desserts”. The misconception primarily stems from the fact that most people are unfamiliar with the word ‘desert’ (pronounced dizert), which more or less means the same thing as the word ‘deserve’.

Despite its pronunciation, just deserts, with one s, is the proper spelling for the phrase meaning 'the punishment that one deserves.' The phrase is even older than dessert, using an older noun version of desert meaning 'deserved reward or punishment,' which is spelled like the arid land, but pronounced like the sweet treat.

Based on the way the second word in just deserts (“the punishment that one deserves”) is pronounced one would be forgiven for imagining that it came about in reference to some form of discipline involving custards, cookies, or petits fours. It might even make one wonder why there are not other meal-based forms of chastisement in our language; why no deserved breakfasts, no requisite lunches, no warranted teas? Because it’s not that kind of dessert.

Maybe there are cookies being weighed on those scales?

The English language is fond of occasionally embracing its whimsical and illogical side, in order to keep things interesting for the people who attempt to use it. For instance, the most common noun form of desert (“arid land with usually sparse vegetation”) is pronounced the same way as the adjectival form of this word (“desolate and sparsely occupied or unoccupied”) play , but not the same way as the verb (“to withdraw from or leave usually without intent to return”), even though all three words come from the same source (the Latin deserere, “to desert”). The verb desert is pronounced the same way as the dessert you eat after dinner play (which comes from the Latin servir, “to serve”). And, to make things even more interesting (by which we mean confusing), there is another noun form of desert, spelled the same as the “arid land” word, but pronounced like the thing one eats after dinner, and with a meaning that is similar to neither.

History of 'Just Deserts'

Just deserts uses this, relatively uncommon, noun form of desert, which may mean “deserved reward or punishment” (usually used in plural), “the quality or fact of meriting reward or punishment,” or “excellence, worth.” This desert and dessert are etymologically related, although the former is quite a bit older; the punishment sense had already been in use for several hundred years by the time we got around to adopting the after-dinner word dessert around 1600. In fact, the use of just deserts predates that of dessert, as it came into use in the middle of the 16th century.

I haue bene yonge and am nowe olde, yet the eies in myne heade:
Dyd never se the juste deserte, nor hys seede begge theyr breade.
— Robert Crowley, The Psalter if David, 1549

In this warre Alexander was made Capitayne of one of the battailles, wherein his noble hert and courage did well apeare, specially when it came to the stroke of the fight, for there he acquited him self so valiauntly yt he semed not inferiour vnto his father, nor to any man els, but by moste iuste desert got the honour of the victory.
— Quintus Curtius (trans. by John Brende), The history of Quintus Curcius, 1553

Unto kynges and princes we gyue due obeysaunce, by whose gouernaunce and furtheraunce they haue bin ayded, to perfurme theyr attemp tes. we commende bothe, and for theyr iust desertes worthely extoll them.
— Pietro Martire d’Anghiera, The decades of the newe worlde, 1555

In early use desert was often used in the singular, and just desert might not refer to a punishment, but to anything that was deserved. In modern use it is typically found in the plural, and just deserts almost always is in reference to a deserved punishment, rather than a reward. And remember that just deserts has nothing to do with post-prandial sweets, unless it is that the punishment that you deserve is to receive none of these things.

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definition - just desserts shooting

definition of Wikipedia

Wikipedia

The Just Desserts shooting was a notable crime that occurred in Toronto on the evening of Tuesday, April 5, 1994. Just after 11:00 PM, a group of three men barged into the Just Desserts Café, a popular café in Toronto's Annex neighbourhood. One of the men was armed with a shotgun. The armed robbers ordered the thirty staff and patrons to the back of the store and took their valuables.

One of the patrons that evening was 23 year-old hairdresser Georgina (Vivi) Leimonis who was there with her boyfriend. A dispute broke out when two male patrons refused to hand over their wallets; they were punched by one of the robbers. Soon after, the man with the shotgun fired and hit Ms. Leimonis in the chest. Leimonis, known as 'Vivi' to her friends, was hit by over 200 shotgun pellets from less than a meter away.^{[citation needed]} The robbers fled the restaurant. Leimonis collapsed and was rushed to hospital; after extensive surgery she died at 2:45 on Wednesday morning.

Investigation

A security camera in the restaurant filmed the entire scene, but its low quality and lack of audio made it difficult to make out events and hard to identify the murderers. The police began a search for four men, the three who had been involved in the robbery and another who had helped them scout the restaurant earlier. The police were criticized when the descriptions released of the four men was that they were six-feet-tall black men. Many felt that such a vague description would do nothing to help capture the perpetrators and would merely enhance stereotypes of black men being criminals.

A week after the shooting Lawrence Augustus Brown was identified as a suspect and he turned himself in to police. Another of the three, Oneil Rohan Grant, was arrested soon after. That fall Gary George Francis and Emile Mark Jones were arrested. Grant, Francis, and Jones were charged with manslaughter and robbery. Brown, who had fired the shotgun, was charged with first degree murder. The charges against Jones, who was not involved in the robbery itself were later dropped.

Consequences

The shooting caused an unprecedented uproar in Toronto and Canada in general. While Canada had 596 murders in 1994 the crime occurred 'within minutes of virtually every national media outlet in the country',^[1] and the cold blooded murder of a woman is rare.^[2] As a result more than 3,000 people attended her funeral.^[3] The outcry led to a call for many political changes. Some called for a return of capital punishment, others for increased gun control.

When it was discovered that the attackers were Jamaican citizens, though they had arrived in Canada as children, editorials in the Toronto Sun and in other media outlets called for tougher immigration laws. New rules were brought in making it easier to deport non-citizens who committed crimes.

Trial

The already famous crime also became notable for being extensively mishandled. The move to trial was extremely slow, as the men sat in jail for years, being denied bail, but not being brought to trial. The case was marred by errors by police and prosecutors, but it was mainly lengthened by defence lawyers who were later accused of unprofessional conduct. While the new defence team argued the charges should be thrown out due to the long delay, this motion was rejected. By the time it came to trial, 40,000 pages of files related to the case had accumulated.^{[citation needed]}

The trials finally got underway in May 1999, with Brown now acting as his own defence counsel. The trial itself became one of Canada's longest,^{[citation needed]} with Brown extensively cross-examining each witness, often for up to two days.

Verdict

The case continued to attract widespread public interest. On the day after the trial closed on December 6, 1999 the Globe and Mail published an unprecedented six-page section devoted to the murder and trial.^[1] The verdict was finally released on December 11: Brown and Francis were found guilty, and Grant was acquitted. Brown was given a life sentence with no chance of parole for twenty five years.^[4] Francis was given fifteen years, and seven were knocked off for the years in jail during the trial. He was thus eligible for parole only three years later, but his 2002 application was rejected. He was released on parole in 2005. On February 24, 2008, Francis was found in possession of 33 grams of crack cocaine and in May 2008 sentenced to 7½ months in jail for several drug related offences.^[5] Grant was deported from Canada to his native Jamaica where he was shot to death on October 29, 2007.^[6]

Current tenants

The infamous location at 306 Davenport Road is now occupied by a Subway Sandwiches franchise.

References

1. ^ ^abhttp://www.walnet.org/csis/news/toronto_2000/gandm-001107-3.html
2. ^http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1096464271792_91873471/?hub=TopStories
3. ^http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3757/is_199701/ai_n8735475/pg_10
4. ^http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/1999/12/11/desserts991211.html
5. ^http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/420441
6. ^http://www.thestar.com/Crime/article/273321

External links

• Globe and Mail – The Just Desserts Case: a.k.a. Brown

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