More than 500 readers of Time, many of them English teachers, spotted what they believed to be a a bald-faced, bare-faced, bold-faced boo-boo in the box. Surely, they tsk-tsked, "just desserts" makes a figurative reference to those delicious after-meal treats that we all crave, while "just deserts" conjures up an image of unremitting heat and sand.
The confusion between deserts and desserts conjured up in my mind one of my favorite student bloopers: "If a tree falls in the dessert, does it make a sound?"
"Not if the dessert is pudding" is my answer.
"Just deserts" has been around a long time. English took the word over from the French deservir, the same word that gives us deserve. Deserts, cast in the plural with the stress on the second syllable, simply means "what one deserves."
Such confusions are bound to whet -- or is it wet? -- your appetite -- for sound-alike words that appear in familiar phrases. The correct choice in this expression is whet. The phrase "our menu will whet your appetite" is a metaphor in which the menu is compared to a whetstone on which the knife's edge of our appetite is sharpened.
I can tell that you're waiting for more examples with baited - or is it bated? - breath. Because in this cliché the breath is held back, the answer is bated, a shortened from of abated. The only context is which you can wait with baited breath is if you're a cat who has eaten some cheese and breathed into a mouse hole.
Did you get that one right, or did you miss it by a hare's breath? That's a nice transition from baited breath, but is it accurate? Alas, it isn't: when one comes oh so close, one misses by the thickness of a hair - "a hair's breadth."
I'm just trying to be helpful to you because I believe that a friend in need is a friend in deed - or should that be indeed? Well, a friend in need is indeed your friend, so the closed version is the one you want to use.
The expressions below may be as familiar to you as your old stamping -- or is it stomping? -- grounds, but when it comes to spelling them, you may be in dire straights -- or is it dire straits? Homophones and sound-alikes can often reek - or is it wreck or wreak? - havoc. In each phrase that follows, choose the preferred spelling.
1. anchors away/aweigh 2. to wait with baited/bated breath 3. to grin and bare/bear it 4. sound bite/byte 5. bloc/block voting 6. a ceded/seeded player 7. champing/chomping at the bit 8. a full complement/compliment of 9. to strike a responsive chord/cord 10. just deserts/desserts 11. doesn't faze/phase me 12. to have a flair/flare for 13. foul/fowl weather 14. hail/hale and hardy/hearty 15. a hair's/hare's breadth/breath 16. a seamless hole/whole 17. a friend in need is a friend in deed/indeed 18. to declare it doesn't jibe/jive 19. on the lam/lamb 20. to the manner/manor born/borne 21. marshal/martial law 22. to test one's medal/meddle/metal/mettle 23. might/mite and mane/main 24. beyond the pale/pail 25. to peak/peek/pique one's interest 26. pi/pie in the sky 27. pidgin/pigeon English 28. plain/plane geometry 29. to pore/pour over an article 30. praying/preying mantis 31. a matter of principal/ principle 32. rack/wrack one's brain 33. to give free rain/reign/rein 34. raise/raze Cain/cane 35. to pay rapped/ rapt/wrapped attention 36. with reckless/wreckless abandon 37. to reek/wreak/wreck havoc 38. right/rite of passage 39. a shoe-/shoo-in 40. to sic/sick the dog on someone 41. sleight/slight of hand 42. spit and/spitting image 43. the old stamping/stomping grounds 44. to stanch/staunch the flow 45. dire straights/straits 46. a toe-/tow-headed youth 47. to toe/tow the line 48. to swear like a trooper/trouper 49. all in vain/vane/vein 50. to wet/whet your appetite
If any of your answers don't jibe with those listed below, check their definitions in your dictionary.
1. aweigh 2. bated 3. bear 4. bite 5. bloc 6. seeded 7. champing or chomping 8. complement 9. chord 10. deserts 11. faze 12. flair 13. foul 14. hale/hearty 15. hair's breadth 16. whole 17. indeed 18. jibe 19. lam 20. manner born 21. martial 22. mettle 23. might/main 24. pale 25. pique 26. pie 27. pidgin 28. plane 29. pore 30. praying 32. principle 32. rack 33. rein 34. raise Cain 35. rapt 36. reckless 37. wreak 38. rite 39. shoo- 40. sic 41. sleight 42. spitting 43. stamping 44. stanch 45. straits 46. tow 47. toe 48. trooper 49. vain 50. whet
© Richard Lederer
If your answer is John Fitzgerald Kennedy, you're not quite correct. Kennedy was, at the age of 43, the youngest man ever to have been elected president, but Theodore Roosevelt became president at 42, when William McKinley was assassinated. When TR's second term was over, he was still only 50 years old, making him the youngest ex-president. William Clinton is the next youngest, having left office at the age of 54.
What American presidents have been impeached?
If your answer includes Richard Nixon, you're wrong again. President Nixon resigned before any impeachment trial. Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were tried under the articles of impeachment. Both were acquitted, but, still, they were both impeached.
As we approach another presidential election, try your hand and mind at the following quiz of presidential firsts, onlys and mosts:
- Now that you know the identity of our youngest president, who was our oldest president?
- Who was our tallest president?
- Who was our shortest president?
- Who was our fattest president?
- Who was the first president to wear a beard?
- Who was president for the shortest period of time?
- What president had the greatest number of children?
- Who was the only president for whom one of the 50 states is named?
- Who were the only presidents for whom national capitals were named?
- Who was the only president never to marry?
- Who was the last president born in a log cabin?
- Who were the only presidents to have been married while in the White House?
- Who was the only president to have been divorced?
- Who was the only president to serve as chief justice of the Supreme Court?
- Who was the only president to be survived by both his parents?
- Who was the only president to have served two nonconsecutive terms?
- Who was the first president to live in the White House?
- Who made the first presidential radio broadcast?
- Who was the first president to appear on television?
- Who was the only man to have been president and vice president but not elected to either office?
1. Ronald Reagan, who became president at 69 and left office at 77. When Reagan died at the age of 93, he was out longest-lived president. 2. Abraham Lincoln, at 6 feet, four inches. 3. James Madison, at 5 feet, 4 inches. 4. William Howard Taft, at 6 feet and 300-352 pounds. 5. Abraham Lincoln 6. William Henry Harrison died on the 31st day of his presidency. 7. John Tyler was the most fatherly of presidents. He had three sons and five daughters with his first wife and five sons and two daughters with his second. From a single marriage William Henry Harrison was the father of ten children - four girls and six boys, one of who became the father of another president, Benjamin Harrison. 8. George Washington 9. George Washington (Washington, D.C.) and James Monroe (Monrovia, the capital of Liberia) 10. James Buchanan. During his term in office, his niece, Harriet Lane, played the role of First Lady. 11. James Garfield 12. Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson 13. Ronald Reagan 14. William Howard Taft 15. John Fitzgerald Kennedy 16. Grover Cleveland, who was both our 22nd and 24th president color="Red">17. John Adams, who moved into the White House on November 1, 1800. He occupied that residence for only four months, having lived most of his term in Philadelphia. 18. Warren G. Harding, in June of 1922 19. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, on April 30, 1939, at the opening ceremonies of the New York World's Fair. Herbert Hoover appeared on the nation's first TV broadcast in 1927, but as secretary of commerce, not as president. 20. Gerald Ford
© Richard Lederer
More than four decades ago, on January 20, 1961, thousands of visitors converged on Washington, D.C., for the inauguration of our 35th president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. A blizzard had struck the eastern seaboard that day. The streets of the capital were clogged with snow and stranded automobiles, but the inaugural ceremony went on, and a new president delivered one of the most memorable addresses in American history.What makes President Kennedy's speech so unforgettable is its striking use of parallel structure - the repetition of grammatical forms to emphasize similar ideas. Let's look at four brief excerpts from that famous inaugural address that exemplify the president's powerful use of parallelism. Examine each section with an ear and eye toward incorporating parallel structure and other uses of balanced prose into your own speaking and writing styles.
The address begins with this clarion-call sentence: "We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom," immediately followed by the tandem participial phrases "symbolizing an end as well as a beginning, signifying renewal as well as change." The echoic sounds of symbolizing and signifying enhance the parallel "as well as" prepositional phrases.
Two paragraphs later, Kennedy proclaims: "Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.
"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty."
Here the new president gathers momentum with two prepositional phrases, "From this time and place, to friend and foe alike," and then launches into five adjective phrases - "born…, tempered…, disciplined…, proud …, and unwilling . . ." And the first four of these adjectives are modified by parallel prepositional phrases. The 81-word sentence ends with parallel adjective clauses - "to which this nation is committed and to which we are committed today " - and prepositional phrases - "at home and around the world."
In the next sentence, after a brief parallelism of two balanced adjectives, "whether it wishes us well or ill," Kennedy employs five parallel verb-direct object constructions - "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe." The alliteration of pay/price, bear/burden, and friend/foe is capped by survival/success.
Toward the end of his inaugural address, Kennedy declares: "So let us begin anew, remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate." Following the balanced noun clauses - "that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof," Kennedy utters the memorable "Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate." Here the powerful "Let us …" clauses are marked by chiasmus, a rhetorical term that describes the effective transposition of key words - in this case negotiate and fear.
Near the conclusion of his address, Kennedy again employs chiasmus to craft what is probably his most enduring statement: "And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." In this ringing passage, each sentence begins with a direct address - "my fellow Americans" and "my fellow citizens of the world" - and the two chiasmi - "country … you" and "you …. country" - work their magic with four parallel noun clauses - "what your country can do…, what you can do …, what America will do …., what we can do … ."
I do not contend that President Kennedy's oration is so unforgettable solely because of its parallel structure. But would we remember his message as vividly if he had said, "You shouldn't worry about the things you can get from your country. Instead consider how you can contribute to America"?
© Richard Lederer
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