I don't use the term in a pejorative sense Has anyone ever stopped to wonder why cowboys tied the bowline in this manner? (It seems quite obvious, but I have never heard/seen a discussion of it.)
Neither do I ! However, the term "
left hand bowline", used at ABoK#1034.5, which differs from the term "
right-hand bowline" by just one hand

, describes very adequately ( the difference in ) the position of the two legs ( or hands ) of the bight component. I don not see any reason we should call the "right-hand" bowline as just THE bowline, and use an adjective only for the "other" bowline. Those "two" knots, although they have a different topology, the have a similar geometry/structure, at least until they are ring-loaded ( a rather rare situation )
Do cowboys use the bowline ? What for ? I understand they need a noose, not a fixed eye-knot ...
I expect that Scott's lock might improve the security of the Eskimo bowline as well.
Do not compare cows to bulls !

The Scott s locked bowline is a locked bowline - if it was not
distinctly superior to ANY form of any not-locked bowline, we would have not been talking about it right now...Farmer Scott had this Columbus-egg idea of using as a rigid post, as an anchor for a second collar, the nipping turn itself, its rim, and not an eye leg - and doing this, he got rid of the complications caused by the widening of the angle between the two eye legs and the ring loading.
I wish to be specific. I believe that it is important from the standpoint of logic and clarity. Call it a modification of the knot which can be modified to tie it. Right-handed and Left-handed are fine. Again, this knot cannot be tied starting with a right-handed bowline.
1. I have used this term, "modification", many times, with the same sense : it is a procedure that
changes the details of a knot, leaving the main idea unchanged. It does not matter if the modification changes something at the first stages of tying the knot, or at the last stages - as long as it leaves the main idea in place. To my view, Scott s locked bowline is just a bowline where the Working end had been forced to follow a more convoluted path after it has been tucked through the nipping loop for a second time, and, more specifically, where the Working end collars the rim of the nipping turn and then goes against the Standing part, until it leaves the knot s nub.
2. What is the "left-hand" bowline, in relation to the "right-hand" bowline ? I believe we can say that the one is
a modification to the other, indeed, because the main idea is the same, although the topology is different - which means that one can not tie any of them by a simple re-dressing of the other, or a re-tucking of the other. You seem to use the term 'modification" with a more specific meaning, that describes something
added on something that exists, something tied
after something else has been tied already, and should not be untied, something
on top of something else. I use it in a somewhat broader sense, which is not related to the temporal sequence of the tying process, but to the spatial arrangement of the strands in the final knot. If two knots are based on the same idea ( as the two forms of the bowline, for example ), even if they are have a different topology, and neither one of those two can be tied by adding something to the other, those two knots can be considered modifications of each other, IMHO.
Scott s lox ? ? The modification of the original Scott s lock can not be considered anything more than a bell that makes a slightly different sound around the neck of a Scott s cow ! Scott himself prefers the sound of the original bell, but this bell is his, too - it is the cow which wears the bell, not the other way around ! The fact that one should first remove the one bell from the neck of the cow to put on the other, does not change the cow itself, or the relation between the farmer and the cow.
