Revised as of
29 June 2023
Whoa . . . who knew this many homonymic carrots were running around loose!
It’s all golden, however, from the value of a carat in a gemstone to the total karats in gold jewelry to the value of an inserted caret to that juicy carrot which I’d rather encounter than a stick!
Word Confusions . . .
. . . started as my way of dealing with a professional frustration with properly spelled words that were out of context in manuscripts I was editing as well as books I was reviewing. It evolved into a sharing of information with y’all. I’m hoping you’ll share with us words that have been a bête noire for you from either end.
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Carat | Karat | Caret | Carrot |
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Part of Grammar: | |||
Noun
karat [British] |
Noun
[British] carat |
Noun
A.k.a., hat, control, uparrow, chevron, xor sign, to the power of, pointer, wedge |
Noun |
Plural: carats, karats [British] | Plural: karats, carats [British] | Plural: carets | Plural: carrots |
Unit of weight for precious stones and pearls, now equivalent to 200 milligrams | Measure of the purity of gold with pure gold being 24 karats | A proofreader’s mark (^) placed below the line (^) to indicate a proposed insertion in a printed or written text
An inverted V-shaped grapheme that is sometimes used as a spacing character A circumflex accent [Computers] Used to mark the beginning of a string or the beginning of a line within that string [Mathematics] Used to signify exponentiation where the usual superscript is not readily usable (as on some graphing calculators) |
Tapering orange-colored root eaten as a vegetable
Cultivated plant of the parsley family with feathery leaves, which yields this vegetable
An offer of something enticing as a means of persuasion Often contrasted with the threat of something punitive or unwelcome |
Examples: | |||
He gave her a half-carat diamond ring.
Diamond carat weight is the measurement of how much a diamond weighs. Thus began a tradition of each queen consort having a crown made specially for her. In 1902, a crown was created for Queen Alexandra using the 105-carat Kohinoor diamond. The Hope Diamond weighs in at 45.52 carats. The Princess Diana’s engagement ring has an 18-carat oval blue sapphire. |
He had an ounce of 24-karat gold.
Karat (K) tells the number of parts, by weight, of gold in 24 parts of alloy. The higher the percentage of pure gold, the higher the karat. |
I used a caret in the photo above to indicate a missing word.
Mark is buying a château in the Loire Valley. Pascal uses the caret for declaring pointers and when dereferencing them. 3^5 for 35 |
Carrots will promote cooperation over the environment far more effectively than sticks.
I love those baby carrots for munching on. The basis for a mirepoix is celery, onion, and carrots. |
History of the Word: | |||
Late Middle English carat (sense 2 of the noun) is from the French, from the Italian carato, from the Arabic ḳīrāṭ (a unit of weight), from the Greek keration meaning fruit of the carob (also denoting a unit of weight), diminutive of keras meaning horn, with reference to the elongated seedpod of the carob. | Late 17th century from the Latin meaning is lacking. | Late 15th century from the French carotte, which is from the Latin carota, which came from the Greek karōton. |
C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan . . . which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them . . . and we’ll all benefit!
Satisfy your curiosity about other Word Confusions on its homepage or more generally explore the index of self-editing posts. You may also want to explore Book Layout & Formatting Ideas, Formatting Tips, Grammar Explanations, Linguistics, Publishing Tips, the Properly Punctuated, Writing Ideas and Resources, and Working Your Website.
Resources for Carat v Karat v Caret v Carrot
Apple Dictionary.com
Pinterest Photo Credits
Tanzanite, Diamond, and Gold Ring by babarara is under the CC BY 2.0 license, via VisualHunt. I inserted the caret and carrot.
I must admit I learned a lot from this one ! I only knew my Carrots, Karats and although familiarwith the caret had never given it a proper name.
Ah, my work here is done…right after I admit that I also relearned from it *grin*
Bravo. Relearning rocks, did you get the book?
It came in this afternoon’s mail. Thanks very much. It’s about fifth in the TBR!
No hurries glad it got there