Homophones Hurt Your Writing: Carrot, Carat, Caret, and Karat

Welcome to this edition of Words For Thought, the blog on wordrefiner.com. Like many of the previous blogs we are looking at homophones. Words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings. 
I understand how important it is to have an error free manuscript. With over 40 years of experience, I have found that homophones give almost every writer fits and difficulties. Because we sound words out in our mind, it is easy to write the wrong word.
Let’s not forget typographical errors also, a slip of the finger on the keyboard can create a different word that may not be caught by a spell-checker. There are many groups of words that vary by only one letter, such as vary and very, or must, mist and most. Three of these words fit this criteria!
The correctly spelled word in the wrong context will not be flagged by most spell-checkers. Word Refiner is dedicated to uprooting all of these hidden errors and providing your document free of spelling errors that you want and deserve.

Now, onto today’s episode! Fourth in the series about Quadruple Homophones. High score!

Carrot, an edible tuber many grow in a garden and millions of us eat in different forms. Wait, I am not going to go all Bubba on you, as in Forrest Gump; maybe a little, many of us like our carrots raw, some only cooked. I am very partial to carrot cake with walnuts. Some drink their carrots.  Okay, I will stop. I am not Rachel Ray.

Carat, precious jewels are weighed in carats.
      “It is so hot in here, I better take my 2 carat diamond engagement ring off!” She said, disappointed that no one had noticed she was newly engaged.  

Karat, the purity of gold is measured in karats, with the finest commonly found being 24k gold.  It takes a lot of heating in a forge and skimming to remove the impurities in the molten gold.  This process makes the gold very soft, explaining why generations ago people would bite gold to see if it was pure.

Caret, this is an editor’s signal that something needs to be inserted at this point. The Caret looks like a little mountain. We see it on some keyboards, but not on others.

There they are, four words with identical sounds.  If you use the wrong word the reader might think they hit an invisible tree root and lose the reading momentum you worked so hard to build.  Use every tool available to prevent that from happening, do not give your readers a reason to not finish your story. Use Word Refiner, beta readers, critique partners, proofreaders and editors to ensure that your work is error free and as smooth as possible.
Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed this issue of Homophones Hurt Your Writing on Words For Thought.  Follow me on twitter: @wordrefiner, for more alerts about hazardous homophones search for  #HomophonesHurtYourWriting or #TyposHurtYourWriting on twitter.
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Quadruple homophones
Remember: Words Have Meaning and Spelling Makes a Difference. 
​Copyright © 2015 Mark L Schultz 

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