Desert vs. Dessert

This is about a common pronunciation error:
“What’s for dessert today?”. Dessert in this sentence refers to cake, ice cream etc. which is usually something sweet served as the last course of a meal. This is different from ‘Desert’ as in ‘Sahara desert’. Desert should be pronounced as ‘dez-ert’ whereas Dessert should be pronounced as ‘dih-zurt’.

We hear many say ‘The dez-ert is tasty’ whereas they mean that the dih-zurt is tasty. ‘Dessert’ has an ‘i’ sound as in ‘did’. ‘De’ in ‘Desert’ sounds like ‘De’ in ‘Den’. Hope this helps.