Author Topic: When is a Carrick - Not a Carrick?  (Read 5842 times)

DerekSmith

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When is a Carrick - Not a Carrick?
« on: May 14, 2006, 11:58:13 AM »
Q - "When is a Carrick NOT a Carrick?"

For me, this question teeters dangerously close to :-

"The King has no cloths" or perhaps "Struth cobba, Ashleys forgotten his strides"

It seems to me that 'just about' anything that can be arranged in a carrick-esque style is being classified as a variant of the Carrick.  From where I am standing, that is just plain wrong and I am keen to hear other opinions on the subject.

For me, the Carrick is unique.  It is the knot Dave Root depicts in his knotting Index as the Carrick Bend or ABOK#1439 http://www.layhands.com/knots/Knots_Bends.htm#CarrickBend  and it is the intermediary knot formed in the first few folds of Willekes method of making the Chinese Button knot.  It is a closed four strand plait.  It has an Overs Index of 8 and is fully saturated with 16 reversals (i.e. it is an 8:16)

Let me make my point with an example which hopefully everyone agrees with.

Take a piece of cord and lay it down in three overlapping loops to create the shape of the Carrick like this :-



It has the double end loop shape and the central diamond.  It has an Overs Index of 8 (but it has a saturation of 6).  It looks like the Carrick, but I hope everyone agrees that this is nothing more than a pile of cord.  If you rationalise it to its simplest form it reduces to just a straight piece of cord i.e 0:0  So just because it 'looked' like a Carrick, it did not mean that is was the Carrick - Agreed?

Going a little further, instead of simply laying the end on the pile, pass it - under, over and under the last three strands that it would have crossed over in the previous example.  



It still looks like the Carrick shape.  It still has an Overs index of 8 and complexity has shot up to 13.  But is it a Carrick?  Rationalise it and it reduces to the Overhand knot (3:6).  So was that a Carrick?  I would argue that it most definitely is not a Carrick.  What it is, is an overhand knot plus a pile of string - Agreed?

Now lets step into the 'dirty water'.  Either make the following shape, or tie the Granny knot and reform it to this shape.  



This knot looks like the Carrick, has an Overs Index of 8 (but still only has a complexity of 8, i.e. 8:8 ).  When the knot is rationalised it returns to the Granny with its classification of 6:12.  So why is this knot, which is no more than two overhand knots, now grouped in with the Carrick 'family'?  Surely this is simply the Granny - with a pile of string!

For me, this, and other 'sub Carricks' are not Carricks at all and should not be classified as such.  For me, the Carrick is not only its shape, but more importantly, it is its complete saturation.

Dare I say it!  I think Ashley is wrong and there is only one Carrick and that is the full 8:16

Q - "When is a Carrick NOT a Carrick?"  A - "When it's a pile of string"

« Last Edit: May 14, 2006, 12:34:11 PM by DerekSmith »

DerekSmith

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Re: When is a Carrick - Not a Carrick?
« Reply #1 on: May 14, 2006, 12:26:54 PM »
If 1439 is the 'Full Carrick'

and Dave Roots 'Double Cross' is the 'Single Carrick'

then presumably the Overhand is the 'Half Carrick'

and a pile of string is the 'Null Carrick'

As every knot comes from the 'Null Carrick' I feel pretty confident that with a bit of effort we can classify every knot as a Carrick variant.

Or is it time to clean up the situation and define 1439 as The Carrick.

Jimbo_The_Kinky

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Re: When is a Carrick - Not a Carrick?
« Reply #2 on: May 14, 2006, 07:29:09 PM »
 :D
Quote
Q - "When is a Carrick NOT a Carrick?"

Oh, now you've done it!  You wanna push me into the "Ashley Uber Alles" crowd, eh??  Well, you asked for it!

;) :D ;D :-*

Just kidding!!!  Sorta...

But the answer to your question, "when is a Carrick not a Carrick", comes straight from ol' Cliff hisself, in ABOK#1 & 2.  That's not a plug for ABoOK, but the actual reverence:

"   1, 2. ... A different way either of tying or of applying a form generally constitutes a second knot." (ABOK p9)

So the answer is, "Each and every single time it is not used in the exact form and method and material as the way CWA shows it."  Yes, this demonstrates that CWA was more Artist than Analyst...  That's okay, though!  Anaylists we got.  Artists we need desperately.

But at the heart of this question is a big hole the IGKT needs to fill:  Why is the same structure in a slightly different configuration supposedly a "different knot"??  Why is a Weaver's Knot not a "Bend", and why not a "Sheet Bend", as the only way to tell the difference is by some lame artifice like "I drew this one in 0.1mm thread, that one in 120mm hawser, therefore ..."

And (for the analytical types), what does CWA's statement do to the King??  If I tie a BWL by the BS ("Boy Scout") "Rabbit, Tree & Hole" method, and PABPRES ties one in the same cord with his blinding-fast "flippy-twist" KM ("Knot Master") technique, according to ABOK#1,2, one of us has tied a "second knot".  So which is the BWL??  ???

And how is a "Flying BWL" able to keep that name??  It's a nifty knot, oh-yes, but shouldn't it have its own name??

Well, anyway...  This bowl of grits has been chewed before, but it just won't stay down.  Thanks for keeping the question hot, in a clever way, DerekSmith.

Willeke

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Re: When is a Carrick - Not a Carrick?
« Reply #3 on: May 14, 2006, 08:46:59 PM »
"There used to be a knot that was called the Carrick bend.
Then an other was developed called double Carrick bend. People started to use the new version and after a long time the word double disappeared in daily use. The old version got the tag of single or simple attached.
Now someone proposes that only the double Carrick bend should be called Carrick bend and that the knot that was Carrick bend has to get a new name."

"Sorry guys, first come first served, the name is Carrick Bend, Single Carrick Bend in full."

Willeke
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nor what a clever person can do with simple tools." - Ian Fieggen

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KC

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Re: When is a Carrick - Not a Carrick?
« Reply #4 on: May 15, 2006, 12:31:23 AM »
i think in large hausers that the lacing is kept flat/stiff we get the charachtteristic lacing as pictured.  But in more flexible, or otherwise an almost capsized, but not version of same; i find munter/ backhand hitches on each half to each other.
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squarerigger

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Re: When is a Carrick - Not a Carrick?
« Reply #5 on: May 15, 2006, 02:57:11 AM »
Hi Derek,

When is it knot?  When it's not!  Willeke is right about the Double Carrick Bend (ABOK refers to Full CB, Double CB name lost in the mists of time) and I think it is disingenuous to start putting in shadows (like the mathemeticians do) and saying that someone (who is that someone?) is calling that shape a variant of the Carrick (Bend).  If you want to call it the OI 8:16, go ahead - it matters not one jot the name you give it, as long as someone else is going to agree with that name, so that they know what you are speaking of.  If they don't, and are just confused by it, let them call it by whatever name they are comfortable.

Having said that, I would certainly like to be among the first to say that what we do as knotters is rational - but I don't think that day is going to come real soon, with bends that are knots, knots that are hitches, hitches that are knots, bights that are loops or turns - where do we as knotters have ANY common lexicon?  Structure is important, shape is important, function is important and simplicity is important - they just do not all go together, all the time.

Why don't we have any common lexicon?  Why don't we have rationality?  History has much to do with it, and we have not yet heard a single Unifying Theory that we all can agree upon.  We do have pictures and perhaps that is our saving grace - maybe something more can be done through the use of drawings, photos, representations on paper or whatever, so that we can come to agreement, rather than having endless discussions about what name to give something?

The names we now have are irrational and non-standard.  The numbering system is as yet undefined for ALL knots, under ALL configurations, and takes no account of putting the knot under tension from different angles and directions and parts - so how do we get to that point?  An extension of ABOK, using at least two types of drawings in tandem might help - the knot loose in a single plane, and then the knot faired, as seen from an orthogonal projection perhaps?  Add a description, using an as-yet undetermined or unagreed-upon lexicon and we might get somewhere.

Whaddya think?

DerekSmith

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Re: When is a Carrick - Not a Carrick?
« Reply #6 on: May 15, 2006, 01:18:43 PM »
Part One of a post which exceeds the size rules for this forum.

Some here will know that I am a chemist (not the dispensing sort).  Not that many years ago practitioners in my profession called themselves Alchemists (over time we sort of just dropped the Al bit).  They understood that all of stuff was made up from four elements -Fire, water, air and earth.  They understood the existence of Phlogiston and spent prodigious amounts of time learning how to transmute lead into gold.  

Succeeding generations built on the knowledge and perspective gained by preceding generations.  Periodically, the developing knowledge displaced the parts which had been demonstrated to be wrong and the science continued to develop until today when we can indeed transmute lead (and most any element really) into gold.  Along the way the Phlogiston and the 'Oil of Vitreol' were dumped and replaced with a naming system based on a new understanding of the 'elements' ordered into the Periodic Table.  Gone were the old misconceptions like - because lead was heavy like gold and because Pyrites shone like gold, they must be close cousins and should not need much to transmute them into gold.

Today we own knowledge to create just about any compound you can imagine and can follow the chemistry of the cosmos down to the minute detail of probing the workings of our very own DNA.  This knowledge has been won not only by standing on the shoulders of veritable giants, but most importantly by being able to see and dismiss misconceptions.  If we intransigently applied the stance - 'It's always been called Phlogiston - so it IS Phlogiston', then we would not be in the position of understanding we find ourselves in today.

Cordage and Knots are as fundamental to mans development as are fire and the wheel, maybe even moreso.  Yet the science of 'Knottology' is still being clamped firmly in the era of the stately Galleon, our practitioners hold no formal training and are relegated to the Craft Fair and novel speakers for some group running out of topics to entertain.

Could this be anything to do with the fact that our naming systems are more than somewhat 'odd', or to the fact that we still hold that what a knot is, is dependant upon how it is made.  Back in the days my predecessors called themselves Al, they wore strangely symbolled gowns, waved sticks and chanted verse as they created their elixirs.  They were just as sure back then that the mumbo jumbo was all important in their art.  Today I still wear a symbolled gown (my lab coat and PPE) and occasionally wave a stick at my brews (a UV lamp or perhaps an ultrasonic activator or maybe some sensing probe) but I know how to call what I have made using an international language that depends on WHAT I have made, not on how I made it.

The use and technology of cordage has not stopped, it is still a vital part of our industry and life - so why have we allowed our science of Knottology to petrify?  In the not too distant future a high tech cord will stretch from the surface of our planet out into space nearly a third of the way to the moon.  It will be called 'The Space Elevator'.  Technology for the creation of this amazing lump of cord is already under development.  So why when cordage is still at the very forefront of our technology is Knot Lore still exactly that - Lore?  Do we not need knots anymore?  Have they been superseded by Velcro and plastic 'Clip fasteners' and super adhesives and metal tape clamps and cable ties and sticky tape and hotmelt glue guns?  To a very large extent the answer is simply YES.

But WHY?  Why would someone go out and buy a custom made plastic clip to fix their plant to a cane instead of using a piece of cord?

DerekSmith

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Re: When is a Carrick - Not a Carrick?
« Reply #7 on: May 15, 2006, 01:25:09 PM »
Part Two of a post which exceeds the size rules for this forum.

I believe that the answer has two parts.

The first part is because they do not know how to!  Most people only know the overhand knot in stacked multiples of itself  - and when it doesn't work, they give up and buy a plastic clip which does work.  Many also know the shoelace knot and the necktie knot but few realise that they are even knots, let alone that they can use them elsewhere.  We do not teach knots in schools.  We do not even have a list of the six most useful knots to teach even if we did teach knots in schools, a list drawn up from the perspective of the home, not sailing or rock climbing.  Really important knots like a good parcel knot, or a 'hold a tree or a plant up' knot.

The second part is the real kicker.  When someone is self motivated enough to find out how to tie up a parcel they come across a brick wall of incomprehension.  Not only are knots not arranged into categories of useful function - "This is the group of useful tightening knots and this one is the easiest to learn" but they also come with a barrage of alien terminology - The Bight, The Bend, The Spart, working part and bitter end ? ? ? ? ?  Then to cap it all, knots are not called by what they are good for and the same knots can have a number of different names or different knots can share the same name even though they don't do the same thing and besides you mustn't use this knot for that because it might capsize ? ? ? ? ?  Confused? Yes of course they are.  And who's fault is that?

The answer to that is - our fault.  No one else can take Knot Lore out of the Alchemy age into modern usage.  No one else can make sense of which knot to use for what.  No one else can package up knot knowledge into a form usable by our schools and promote it to our children.  And most importantly, no one else can kick the crap and deadwood out of our science just as every other successful science has managed to do for itself.

I don't care that one of knottings giants called 1440 a Carrick - it is wrong.  I don't care that it is part of the faith that 'making a given knot by a different method gives it a different name' - it is wrong.  Today, standing on the shoulders of our giants, we can and must now see what is wrong within our field.  We owe it both to our children and also to our forefathers to clean up our act and make the very most of the gifts of knot knowledge that we have been given.

I personally have two goals towards this end.

The first is to help create a clear sensible structured index of knots - this is potentially starting to take shape in the form of the 'Overs Index'

The second is to help create a training pack for schools which will teach the twelve most useful knots for today's living and today's materials.

Along the way, a load of old terminology and 'Junk Lore' will be consigned to the section marked "The History of Knotting", which is of course the right place for it.  It is a long journey, but I know there will be many of us making that journey together.  People, like me, who want their grandkids to grow up with a piece of string in their pockets and the knowledge of how to use it.