Pet Peeve: Desert vs Dessert

Blogfrogs, let's make this short and sweet, because I have Christmas shopping to do, and no doubt you have something else you should be doing too.

So: Speaking of sweet, dessert is that lovely course that comes at the end of the meal. Because it's so sweet, it deserves two s's. (See how I threw in that pnemonic? Aren't I just the bee's knees?)

But desert is so arid and dry, it's soaked up one of its s's and is left with only one. Also, it's a verb, as in "to abandon." Because, see, it abandoned one of its s's, and ...

Well, you get the picture.

This lovely bûche de Noël is a dessert:

This superdry place is a desert:

Got it? Swell. Back to the mall, after which I expect you'll have a nice cup of eggog generously laced with something nice waiting for me when I return.


images: Top: my very own photo of my very own bûche de Noël, which I make every Christmas.
bottom:  Desert near Marsa Mubarak, Egypt. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Photo by Marc Ryckaert (MJJR). This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.