When I first came here (to the IGKT), I knew and used a fair number of knots. Knowing each by its name, they were all knots for tying things with.
Then I was introduced to the 'Secret Handshake' of the Guild - its language.
'Novices' were outed the moment they 'tied' two pieces of string together - Ohhh No... Those from within the Guild 'bent' their cordage and knew how to spell 'bight' and strew about their 'SParts', keeping those novices firmly in thrall of the 'experts'.
I met a number of people both on this forum and within the Guild who I admired for their expertise, and as time has passed my respect for these and other individuals has grown. However, with the same passage of time, my initial awe of the language has turned into contempt.
If there is one thing above all others holding back the development of our field from becoming anything more than a 'hobby shop' it is our ridiculous language and a covetous insistence on retaining it. Our language was developed in a different age, within various crafts and from different countries, which is great because it has had the opportunity to develop great richness, but today we are petrifying that richness by preventing the language from evolving to serve its new needs.
The language of cordage is evolving nicely, driven by the commerce of the development of a myriad new materials and usages. But our language of knots is being held in stasis by us - its 'keepers' - 'proper knotters' who do Turks heads and 'Bends' and hitches and who know the secret right (or is it left) handed way to tie a Bowline.
The time to review our language is long overdue, especially with regard to being able to communicate with each other about the functional characteristics of the knots that we study. The name has already been taken by people who tie knots in strips of paper - Knotology - but I propose taking it back. From now on, I propose to use the term Knotology to mean the science and study of knots - all knots.
As several have pointed out before, each language has its audience - its users, so before developing one it is necessary to define that target audience. For the sake of starting somewhere, I am going to propose that the audience is those who frequent the Knot Theory and Computing (KT&C) board of the IGKT Forum - i.e. English speaking with an interest focussed on knot form and function.
If any rationalisations are developed here which make it easier or clearer to discuss Knotology, then it is possible that this lexicon may find use and favour in the wider field of knot usage, if that is the case, then wonderful, but that is not the prime directive for developing the lexicon - that directive is to enable the discussion of Knotology on this forum board, and if the terminology we choose is not understood outside of this board, then that is not relevant to our selection and definition of terms.
Is it arrogance to hijack, redefine and create new terms? I don't believe so, any more than it was arrogance to define the new file formats and language used to unambiguously describe a knot diagram in FCB or its enhancement KnotMaker. The simple sentence 'ebi fbj dci ech fcg gca ddk edg fdl eeo' in the lexicon of FCB is sufficient to exactly describe a diagram of the overhand knot. It is meaningless to anyone but Frank Brown, Dave Root or myself, but using the FCB utility, it can be translated into a diagram that just about anybody can understand - but most importantly the language is used without ANY ambiguity. If you are trying to communicate some aspect or concept of Knotology, then ambiguity is going to be a killer from the word go, so an unambiguous lexicon is the bedrock of Knotology.
There you have it. I have driven the standard into the ground, thrown down the gauntlet and nailed my colours to the mast.
Let the lexicon of Knotology begin - January 2010
