A *hitch*...is loaded on one *end*
One, or two - climbing hitches and hitches able to withstand lengthwise pull may be loaded on both ends - in the more strict or in the broader sense where the two ends are tied connected together just out of the knot s nub.
A *noose* is a knotted structure in which the POFM turns around the object and then is *hitched* to itself, loaded on the unknotted *end* of the *structure*.
This much seems simple.
It may seem so, but it is not !
In the case of the slide-and-grip hitches, for example ( like the "lockable" arthroscopic hitches ), the knot starts as a noose, with the noose s nub sliding on the knotted end of the structure, and ends up as a hitch, where there is a switch of the load, and the previously unloaded knotted end becomes now the one which carries the load. - while, at the same time, the previously unknotted end becomes knotted, too !
Simple, indeed ! Some more of this "
simplicity", and the noose/hitch Janus-faced knot will become a straight line !
I'm inclined towards distinctions based one structure rather than effect because the latter can be variable across materials/forces; in a classification system I think one does better to classify irrespective of behaviour.
Welcome to the Universe where there
are individual objects, like apples or knots, about which we
can speak - without reference to the worm inside the apple and the apple s "edible material", or the "knotted material ".
Now, you may argue that you are speaking about classification, and not examination, and that, when we examine a "knotted material", the classification does not matter. If that is so, I will tell you that your classification system is worthless, as it can not help you "connect the dots", and predict something that you were not already aware about. When people connected the dots of the Periodic table of elements ( the archetype of a classification system of natural objects ), they made new discoveries ! They predicted new elements, and new unknown qualities of already known elements. If you "see" objects in another way than the one you "sort" them into categories, you should either "close" your old classification system, or "open" your eyes !
A classification of knots according to their structure ( i.e., the consideration of each individual knot
per se ), can reveal, to a large degree, their practical value regarding simplicity, stability, non-jamming-ness, and strength. There will be surprizes - and there are plenty of elements in the periodic table with some surprizing, unpredicted, even unexpected qualities. However, the basic scheme stands. A knot can be examined
per se - without references to the knotting material and the loading pattern-, and that is exactly why it exists, re. us, in the first place, as an individual object, and does not remain another indiscernible part of the cosmic soup !
If the classification of knots should based on their structure, that means that the principal quality of their existence, and the quality which has to be examined first, is their structure - or that we have to change our classification system, or that we have to discover the deeper relations between qualities of knots and their structures we still miss.
P.S.
A personal experience, which, although it has taken place decades ago, is still vivid in my memory. I was 17 and about to participate in difficult exams in order to be admitted to college, and I had never ever opened ONE page of the thick chemistry books. A teacher noticed that, and volunteered to give me some private lessons - not more than 10, as I remember. In those lessons he systematically taught me how to predict most of the chemical properties of a chemical element, where the only thing I knew about it was its place in the periodic table - and then, knowing how this element behaves as a chemical substance, to be able to write long blah blah expositions about it, figure out how to predict possible industrial uses, solve chemical problems, etc. In the test, I got 32 out of 40, and I still remember the feeling of learning how a key of nature works, and using it on one s behalf.
That is the classification scheme of knots I wish : something that would not only be a catalogue, but a system, and which will allow us not only to remember, but to imagine as well.