Have "the stone" set

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

Hello,

I have three questions about the sentence below:

I had the stone set in 18k gold ring.

  1. Does “the stone” imply that it’s a diamond? Of course, it can be a ruby or anything, but I wonder if a diamond is called a stone in general.
  2. How do you read 18k? Eighteen-Kay?
  3. Does “a” or “the” or “my” before 18k gold ring? What do you think? I think “ring” is singular so it need something like one of those.

Thank you in advance,
sweetpumpkin

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2

  1. It’s common for a diamond to be called a stone, but you can not assume that. It can be any gem.

  2. Eighteen-kay or 18 Karat (Carat in BrE)

  3. Yes, you need some kind of article or possessive pronoun.

Homophones:

Karat - portion of gold in an alloy - 24K is pure gold
Carat - the mass or weight of a gem - so you might have a 1 carat diamond set in an 18 Karat ring,
Caret - the upward pointing arrow ^
Carrot - the kind you eat

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3

Are these words really homophonic?
Do we pronounce them almost the same way?

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4

According to the dictionary:

Karat - kăr′ət
Carat - kăr′ət
Caret - kăr′ĭt
Carrot - kăr′ət

So caret is the only one that is slightly different, but in practice I don’t think you’d notice the difference. Of course it depends somewhat on local accents.

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