Day 253: There is nothing which intrigues me more than the edifice of language, and English in particular is a marvel of construction. Were this word spoken singly, the hearer would have no frame of reference for its meaning. Two of the spellings place it in the field of jewelry manufacture. Another is a proofreader's or editor's mark indicating that something needs to be inserted. Yet another refers to a vegetable, and if you can't sort out which spelling applies in that case, you're beyond all hope of redemption and need not read any further.
English has many such instances of a common pronunciation, e.g., "bear-bare," mettle-metal," "bough-bow" and so on. When the spelling differs as it does in these cases, the words are referred to as "homophones." They are members of the greater family of homonyms which also includes homographs (words which are spelled alike and sound alike, but have different meanings).
So let's count our "karəts!" What, exactly, do we have here, and what's for dinner?
Carrot - a root vegetable; long and skinny and orange
Caret - an editor's instruction
Carat - the mass in grams of a stone (one carat equals 200 mg.)
Karat - a unit of measure for the purity of an alloy with gold (pure gold is 24 karat)
You'd dent the fourth one if you bit it, but you'd break a tooth on the third. The second might not be too tasty in your soup. The first makes a delicious and healthful snack (not "healthy," mind you...that's what you hope to become by consuming them as a regular part of your diet). Hurrah for karəts! Hurrah!
No comments:
Post a Comment