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Bunny Trails: A Word History Podcast
Episode 177: Just Deserts
Record Date: January 2, 2023
Air Date: January 4, 2023
Intro
Dan:
Welcome to Bunny Trails, a whimsical adventure of idioms and other turns of phrase.
I’m Dan Pugh
Shauna:
And I’m Shauna Harrison
Each week we take an idiom or other turn of phrase and try to tell the story from its entry into the English language, to how it’s used today.
Opening Hook
Dan, I’m not generally one to wish ill will towards others nor to hope that someone receives unearned accolades. However, I do feel a certain satisfaction when a person gets just what is coming. Some people call this instant karma - a phrase I’m not a huge fan of. I prefer instead to say they’ve gotten their just deserts.
Meaning
Just deserts is an idiomatic term that, according to the Oxford English Dictionary means,
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what a person or thing really deserves, especially an appropriate punishment
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https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/102189?redirectedFrom=just+deserts#eid278286516
The definition is simple enough but the origin of the phrase is not quite as simple.
This is really a compound term made up of two words. Just - and - Desert.
In this case, just takes on one of two meanings depending on the speaker’s or writer’s intent. One is the meaning associated with justice. But in some cases, the intended meaning of just is as an adjective that implies the concept of only, singular, or specifically.
For the word deserts. This is an interesting history, in my opinion. It is pronounced deserts or sometimes in the singular, desert. However, it is not referring to sweet treats or to abandonment. It’s spelled the same as desert, those climates with scant amounts of precipitation each year.
d-e-s-e-r-t-s
This is a word that is used very uniquely in the English language. In the U.S. this word is really only used in this particular phrase - just deserts.
Deserts came to us from the French language. It is a noun that means something that is deserved.
This is still pretty simple, now that I think about it. But I do love that with all of the many ways in which we use words in the English language… this word - really has just the one use.
Alright, how old is this phrase?
Just Deserts is,This first attestation in print, according to Oxford English Dictionary is in the 1548 work The First Tome Or Volume of the Paraphrase of Erasmus Vpon the Newe Testamente by Desiderius Erasmus, Thomas Caius, Mary I (Queen of England), Francis Malet, and Nicholas Udall.
It’s quite the heady group, there. Here is the excerpt.
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It procedeth more of their enuie, of their vnquietnes of minde..then of any faute or iust deserte in Erasmus.
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https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_First_Tome_Or_Volume_of_the_Paraphra/QA2ZxgEACAAJ?hl=en
The phrase appears in a 1592 work by Richard Turnbull titled, An Exposition Vpon the Canonicall Epistle of Saint Jude With the Analysis and Resolution, Both Generall of the Whole Epistle, and Perticular of Euerie Lecture : Diuided Into Tenne Sermons Or Lectures.
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The phrase continues to be used throughout the next few centuries, primarily in religious context - mostly in sermons or evaluations of Catholicism and Christianity.
However, it is used in some other texts as well. Here is one example from 1680 found in a work by Henry Cary Falkland (Viscount), Edward Fannant. The work is titled, The History of the Most Unfortunate Prince, King Edward II - With Choice Political Observations on Him and His Unhappy Favourites, Gaveston & Spencer - Containing Several Rare Passages of Those Times Not Found in Other Historians.
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During the 1700s, the phrase was used predominantly for religious works.
Moving to the early 1800s… A rather intense squabble apparently took place in the state of Georgia. It had been a quiet matter until private letters between two men were published in the January 13, 1804 edition of the Berkeley and Jefferson intelligencer out of Martinsburg, Virginia.
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The next item was published in the January 11, 1825 edition of the Edwardsville spectator out of Edwardsville, Illinois.
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Further along in the poem is where we find our phrase.
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While all of this does sound somewhat defeatist, the editor did finish his piece with the hopeful sort of nostalgia that the New Year seems to bring for many people, concluding
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At the turn of the century, the phrase was being used in those clever tidbits that are often jokes or a piece of advice, commonly a turn of phrase. These were often shared as a list of Maxims or Lessons. They’re just silly one-liners. This one appears in The pioneer express May 04, 1900, out of Pembina, Dakota now North Dakota.
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By the 1940s, the phrase was solidly established in the world of advertisement puns. We find this one in an ad for baking supplies in the Detroit evening times March 21, 1944 edition out of Detroit, Michigan.
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The July 22, 1945 of the Evening star out of Washington, D.C. featured the story
One excerpt reads
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Next, we’re going to the December 13, 1952 edition of the Evening star out of Washington, D.C. In the section “Take My Word For It” by Frank Colby, readers ask their most pressing questions about the English language.
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We’ll get to our modern examples, right after we take a moment to say thank you to our sponsors.
A Quick Thank You
Dan:
This episode is sponsored by our amazing Patrons on Patreon.
You can help support this educational artform and get awesome perks along the way! Tiers start at $3 a month, which get you our polls and community-only discussions, early access to the podcast, and the behind the scenes video for each episode so you can watch along as we make the show.
At $10 you’ll also get original digital artwork from Shauna once a month featuring exclusive art about an idiom or other turn of phrase. At $15, you’ll also get personal on-air recognition like Pat Rowe does every episode. And of course huge thanks goes to the top spot among our Patrons, our Dean of Learning, Mary Halsig-Lopez. Thank you so much to Mary and all of our patrons.
If you want to help create Bunny Trails week after week, whatever your budget, we are bunnytrailspod on Patreon.
That’s patreon.com/bunnytrailspod
Modern Uses
Just Desserts - spelled like the sweet confectionary type - is a restaurant bakery in California.
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Just Desserts
It all started at a San Francisco cafe in 1974. We introduced our premium line of delicious, hand-crafted desserts, and the great taste traveled fast.
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Kudos to them, they managed to snag the web URL justdesserts.com.
The book Just Deserts: Debating Free Will by Daniel C. Dennett (Author), and Gregg D. Caruso was published in 2021. Here is the summary,
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The concept of free will is profoundly important to our self-understanding, our interpersonal relationships, and our moral and legal practices. If it turns out that no one is ever free and morally responsible, what would that mean for society, morality, meaning, and the law? …
Just Deserts introduces the concepts central to the debate about free will and moral responsibility by way of an entertaining, rigorous, and sometimes heated philosophical dialogue between two leading thinkers.
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https://www.amazon.com/Just-Deserts-Debating-Free-Will/dp/150954576X
Just Deserts is a video game that was released in 2016 and is available on Steam. Here is the description,
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Just Deserts is a sci-fi action dating sim where you play as a soldier who must protect a city from mysterious alien attack, while at the same time you will also be seeking to capture the heart of your dream girl(s)!
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https://store.steampowered.com/app/488660/Just_Deserts/
The Just Deserts is an art series by Paul Newman that was painted 2017-2020. A description of the series reads,
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The Just Deserts’ are concentrated little studies of greedy puddings as a metaphor for a gluttony of paint, a particular approach to painting. Originally the series was started by deciding what to do with an excess amount of paint, a small canvas and a book showing a cropped detail of a bowl of fruit from a Manet painting ‘A Bar at the Folies-Bergère’. Philip Guston’s depictions of cakes in his thickly painted cartoonish figurative works are also a point of reference.
‘Ice-cream & van’ also includes a version a ford escort van, a recurring motif in a group of study’s on their own and in a series called English Gothic, which references 18th -20thC historical landscape painting, urban and industrial motifs and movie monsters such as Frankenstein’s and the human fly.
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https://www.axisweb.org/p/paulnewman/workset/247862-the-just-deserts/
Despite these pieces depicting sweet treats like overflowing ice cream sundaes and the like - the name of the series is spelled like our phrase d-e-s-e-r-t-s.
This phrase also shows up in music here and there. One very recent piece is from a fairly popular movie.
The song Just Desert is one of the instrumental pieces used as theme music for the 2022 film Thor Love and Thunder. It was produced by Michael Giacchino. We’ll share a link to the song so you can listen for yourself. It gives this slightly sad, soulful, even eerie at moments feel that works great to set the right mood for an epic hero-type tale.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0iaxJFMAGM
Wrap Up
Just deserts is a great way to sum up that a person has gotten what they deserved. It could be used in a positive manner or a negative one. I like this phrase because, while it may mean that you’re wishing something bad on someone else… it implies that they only get what they deserve. Or at least that’s how I’m imagining the intent. And hey, I think we can all stop saying instant karma - we’ve already got a phrase for what you mean. Instead try saying that the person got their just deserts.
Shauna:
That’s all we have time for today. If you have any thoughts on the show, or pop culture references we should have included, reach out to us on social media where we are @bunnytrailspod, or comment on our website bunnytrailspod.com
Dan:
It’s time for our Patron’s Poll:
Would you rather be cold or hot?
We hear comments about this all the time. Some people can't handle the cold, others can't handle the heat. Some would rather put more clothes on, some would rather take more clothes off.
Hot 75%
Cold 25%
Shauna:
So, 75% of our patrons chose correctly! Way to go, everyone!
Dan:
My ideal temps would range from 65F to 95F. I can do a little colder, to about 50, without much issue. And I can do hotter, to about 103 or 104, without much issue. But outside of that window it gets uncomfortable. I prefer hotter climates because as I have gotten older, I can't seem to warm myself up when I get cold. I have to take a hot shower or go to a heated area to warm up. Being under a blanket or layering up doesn't do it if I'm starting out cold.
JGP said,
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I would *absolutely* rather be cold. You can always put on more layers of clothes but there's a limit to how many you can take off without being arrested.
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Shauna:
Okay, JGP makes an excellent point. And being too hot is kind of the worst if you work in an office environment or are expected to wear business dress. That being said, I prefer slightly warm temps because I’m cold almost all of the time. My ideal climate is most of Costa Rica.
Dan:
If you want to take part in our silly polls and sometimes learn new things while you’re at it, head over to patreon.com/bunnytrailspod to see what we have this week!
Outro
Dan:
Thanks for joining us. We’ll talk to you again next week. Until then remember,
Together:
Words belong to their users.
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