Caret confused with other chevron-shaped characters, such as or , which may occasionally be called carets, too. The caret was originally and continues to be used in handwritten form as a proofreading mark to indicate where a punctuation mark, word, or phrase should be inserted into a document. The term comes from the Latin , "it lacks", from , "to lack; to be separated from; to be free from". The caret symbol is written below the line of text for a line-level punctuation mark, such as a comma, or above the line as an inverted caret (cf. ) for a higher
Reading or metal; instructions can be printed in relief on the plastic housing of a home appliance, or myriad other examples. A requirement for reading is a good contrast between letters and background (depending on colors of letters and background, any pattern or image in the background, and lighting) and a suitable font size. In the case of a computer screen, it is important to see an entire line of text without scrolling. The field of visual word recognition studies how people read individual words. A key technique in studying how individuals read text is eye tracking. This has revealed that