Carrots, Karats, Carats, and Carets - What's the Difference?

Welcome to the Grammar Minute, where we’re saving the English language sixty seconds at a time! I’m Lauren Smyth, and I’m here to talk about carrots. No, I didn’t suddenly transmute into a rabbit. It turns out there are at least four different spellings of “carrot” in English, and they all mean something different. (By the way, the technical term for this is “homophones.”) We all know about the vegetable, C-A-R-R-O-T, of rabbit fame, but here are three others. Karat, K-A-R-A-T, is a measure of the purity of gold. Pure gold is 24 karats. A gold alloy would be something less than 24 karats, depending on how many parts of gold to parts of alloy are included. Carat, C-A-R-A-T-, is a measure of the weight—not purity—of precious stones and pearls. Just to add in a little confusion, these two karats/carats are generally spelled the same outside the United States. Caret, C-A-R-E-T, is a mark editors use to tell a writer he needs to insert something. Here’s your challenge for the week: Come up with a super tongue twister by putting all four of these words into a sentence. That’s your Grammar Minute! Visit thegrammarminute.com for more tips and tricks.