A couple of thoughts. First "bight" - also used to describe a geograghical feature (eg in UK shipping weather forecasts one sea area is "German Bight") ie a bay which is open to the sea. In knotting it means much the same whereas to me a loop is by definition closed ...
I cannot find "bight" used much in geographical senses,
but I'm not equipped for such a precise search -- quick Google
doesn't show much, except in some extant
names of places.
(I have a sense that perhaps it once mattered in terms of then
capable sailing vessels ("can sail out of in one tack" or some such
constraint), and with modern ships is not relevant?)
In any case, I find the given condition of whether it's "closed"
to really be beside the point: that a "loop" is essentially
roundand a "bight"
elongated. ("loop" is overloaded/general such
that it covers all sorts of meanings.) And, after all, the crossing
of legs is something dependent upon a perspective -- change that
by 90 degrees and the legs are merely adjacent. The 1913 & '34
Webster's include the bends of elbow & horse's knees, and that
of a river, which goes much towards
bending and without
regard for
openness. And neither of these other cases
much resembles the main need & object in knotting, which is
a quite elongated fold of cordage.
The sense in knotting of merely "without ends", got somewhat
indirectly by some "middle of the rope" or "slack part of the
standing part" (!?), I am happy to lose to some other term.
As for a bight being "open", I have some terms in mind where
a bight is a general term (lacking better) to then constrained
cases of "open" & "closed", where the latter equals an "eye"
and where both legs are tensioned, and the former indicates
the case such as in a Sheet Bend (new sense) where only one
leg is tensioned. "Bight Hitches" I see as a sub-class of knots
(to which I donate the Sheet Bend & Becket Hitch, resp. open
& closed bights), quite useful.
- - - - - -
As for "standing part", we need to look at how the term has
been used (and WHEN it has been -- or is it just often defined
but largely ignored), and see what works. We do NOT need
to find a replacement that fits everywhere "S.P." once occurred,
and that somehow makes those different uses sensible. But we
need to understand what was trying to be conveyed. (My sense
is that it really makes no sense to try to point to a supposed
part of plain rope and identify a "standing part" -- but might
make sense in the course of a tying method to so identify
some part
of the cordage thus engaged. )
Identifying parts of a knot can be completely distinct from tying.
--dl*
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