This Word

Deserve.

de·serve

dəˈzərv/

verb

verb: deserve; 3rd person present: deserves; past tense: deserved; past participle: deserved; gerund or present participle: deserving

do something or have or show qualities worthy of (reward or punishment).

"the referee deserves a pat on the back for his bravery"

synonyms:

merit, earn, warrant, rate, justify, be worthy of, be entitled to, have a right to, be qualified for

If my dad was irked by something, he make it known.  Using the word 'deserve' irked him.

"You deserve a vacation."

"You deserve some time off."

"Take the day off.  You deserve it."

"I deserve a better grade than what I got."

Dad always said that we had to work for what we had, what we earned, our time off, our vacations.

I remember being called in to work at Roth's Dept. Store in Mt. Vernon, and I said I couldn't work that evening.  Why?  Because I had plans to go to the movies with Jane Ann and Thelma.  Dad lit into me about that.  He told me that I needed to take every opportunity to work, to earn money, to prove that I was dependable and reliable.  When I said I 'deserved' a night with my friends to relax, he laughed and said I had not been overworked, nor had my schedule been tedious, and my only reason was that I wanted to have fun and not bother with going in to fill in for a sick employee.
 
From then on everything about working and not working was put into perspective for me.  I didn't deserve time off; I worked hard and when the job was finished, then I could take a break. 

My students used to tell me that they 'deserved' a better grade because of the time they spent on a paper, rather than evaluating the quality of their work.  No...they received the grade they earned, based on the quality of their work and meeting the criteria of the assignment.

The other day I saw a post on FB from a former colleague who had received his 10 year award at the Recognition luncheon at Ivy Tech.  One of the comments was that he really deserved this award.

The award is nice.  I received one last year too.  But did he 'deserve' it?  He was employed full time for 10 years which is the only criteria for this.  So he 'deserved' it.  I don't know.  Maybe that is nit-picky.  But I tend to agree with my dad.