benita:

My friend Jordan sent me this email today:

What’s wrong with this subject line?

————— Forwarded message —————
From: The Daily Beast <emails@thedailybeast.com>
Date: Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 3:42 PM
Subject: Cheat Sheet - Hedge-Fund Boss Gets His Just Deserts
To: Jordan

My reply: THAT MAKES ME SO ANGRY.

Speaking a a Newsweek/Daily Beast copy editor, allow me to politely ask: what the fuck’s your problem?

If you are under the mistaken belief that it should be “just desserts,” you are 100% wrong, unless you are making some tired pun on after-dinner treats (I used to be a copy editor at Martha Stewart Living, too). In this case, it’s desert (as in arid region), but here the heteronym means “one’s deserved fate.” Deserved. Desert. Get it? 

The only deserved reason for your anger is if you are one of those very few people who insist on calling them the more grammatically accurate hedged funds, but I doubt that’s it.