But in flexible rope, big loops end up looking very long, floppy, curvy and not very eye-like at all.
Not when they are loaded, attached on a pole, a bollard, a ring, a hook, the waist of the climber, another eyeknot, etc. Do eyes themselves end up looking very eye-like, when they are closed ?
This all dances around the larger issue of why anyone would want to abandon widespread and long established terminology (and names !) that prefer "loop".
The word "eye", in the sense of a "closed" hook, is widespread and long established, too : I was told about the eye of the needle from my grand mother, the wiser human being I had ever met - who lost a needle, that fell into the carpet, on which I stepped on, bare footed - the needle was broken inside my left foot s sole, and it was removed only after an operation in real vivo, without anaesthesia, for some looong minutes ( it was still dangerous to perform anaesthesia to very small children ). I still remember my horror, as four men were holding me on the chair while the surgeon was digging, I still have the scars, and I will never forget what the eye of the needle is !
I am an advocate of neither neologisms, nor new names for things already name, without a reason. I was convinced about the usefulness of a more descriptive, as it really is, and less ambiguous name in this case by dan Lehdman - although his persuasive ability on me, and/or my ability to be persuaded for something by him, are very limited, indeed !
Now, nothing will be carved in stone ! Even if this term is "established" ( if a knotting term can ever be established - there are so many different names used for the same things, and so many things that have no names, that we should not worry too much about it...) , we can not predict if it will survive into the flow of time or not, or how much later it will be replaced by something else. Also, we do not know which language will be the lingua franca of the world - in other words, we do not know the shape of the eyes of the people that will speak this language !
Instinctively, when I tuck a working end through a small opening of an already half-tied nub - something I do very often - I feel as I drive a thread through the eye of the needle - and as I grow older, and my sight deteriorates, I feel it more vividly !
So, the word "eye" makes more sense to me in this case, than the word "loop". Also, the word "eye-knot" is more descriptive, in my mind, than the word "loop knot". However, as my knowledge and experience of English is rudimental, I can not have a say on this issue - on top of so many issues I imagine I can say something, and that something will be heard by somebody
I will simply follow the consensus of the community, whatever that might be. There is no better article on the most important end of line eye-knots/loop-knots we have, the bowlines, other than this one by Mark Gommers - and I doubt that somebody else will write something else in the foreseen future. Of course, I would like to listen to the learned opinion of Derek Smith and Dave Root, and I had already suggested to Mark Gommers to ask them about this. However, my primary concern is to find a way to distinguish the set of the crossing knot / hitch based bowlines, from the subset of the "Eskimo" bowlines, for example, i.e. issues that have to do with the structural differences between "similar" knots, and not the names of knots !
P.S. When we speak of the generic shape of an eye, we tend to imagine, i.e. " s
omething hollow, and more rounded from the one side, but more pinched from the other " -
AND, we tend to imagine that, in a human face, the more round sides of the eyes would be close to the nose, and the more pinched sides close to the ears. See the eyes on a human face where we can say that what really happens is the exact opposite . Bird s eyes are also more round, and the eyes of nocturne birds, like the owls, have the more peculiar shapes of all.
