About twelve months ago (all right, eleven months) we had this particular challenge thrown down by Derek Smith, aka "The Dunny Man" (not sure how he relates that to his activities here but that is probably another story!):
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
The post is now aged and I therefore propose to resurrect its challenge that was never successfully resolved. In an effort to come up with a language that is unambiguous, comprehensive and comprehensible I have looked at past posts on this and other forum postings that skirt or touch lightly on the subject, but again are inconclusive. We have discovered that existing terms have ambiguities e.g. what is a knot, what is a bight, what is a turn, where does a nip start and finish, etc. I am not proposing in this post to re-examine those terms because it appears they are ambiguous and therefore subject to a lot of argument and discussion without useful resolution. Mathematical terms frighten the bejasus out of many folks and as for chemistry (shudder!) - we cannot even comprehend that salt is not salt but instead a mixture of sodium, chlorine, some iodine, possibly some potassium and who knows what anti-caking agents - and I thought it was just salt! What to do this thing?
I sat and looked at knots (pardon my initial term of abusage - we will eventually move this term aside in favor of TECHNICAL terms) from the viewpoint of a child or someone trying to understand how to make something. For carpentry we have a drawing, usually orthographic and it describes in three dimensions the scope, shape and view of the object of our desire, likely adding something about wood chooices, finishes etc. For basket-weaving, we have bases, numbers of verticals, horizontal weaving patterns, presence or absence of lid or other fitting such as handles, and again something about whether this is wicker, pine needles, rushes or what-have-you. In sewing and knitting we have certain stitches that are known by a name, and also by a shorthand, so that we are aware of the next move, once again with yarn or thread type, color, length or weight. What do we have with knotting or tying?
First we have one piece or more of a flexible stuff we shall call string, cord, line, rope or cable according to arbitrary and sometimes capricious 'rules' of usage. Let's all agree to just call it line, for reasons that will become evident. Line when used for tying or knotting something, whether to another line, to an object or to itself, is manipulated by means of various different moves. Children learn this as 'gozovers, gozunders, makes railway tracks' and so on. Let's take that simple start and talk about:
What we want the line to do
Whether there is only one or more than one piece of line
Whether there is another object involved (spar, carabiner, tree, etc.)
What directions the line must take to achieve the 'knotting' or 'tying' i.e. what we want the line to perform to do the job
These, then, are the line descriptors or names for the directions the line is to take:
An unchanged piece of line is a
straight line
A line that is going to go over or under something else is a
wave line
A line that is not a straight line is a
bent line and necessarily also possibly a
wave, although not exclusively
A line that goes around something is a
curve line and necessarily also possibly a
bent, although not exclusively
A line that wraps around something is a
trap line and necessarily also possibly a
wave,
bent or
curve, although not exclusively
A line that parallels something else is a
track line
A line that covers something is a
cover line
There we have it - names that define line actions unambiguously (we can add a degree of curve, wave, trap or whatever), that can be given direction (either through orthography as x, y, z coupled with degrees or vectors) and length. It should then suffice to name the type, thickness, color or other descriptor of line and you have a TECHNICAL (albeit theoretical) description that may have some merits in becoming a definition. It also has the bonus of being somewhat comprehensible to the newcomer and thence being more useful and more widespread - lacking past knotting and tying usage and with only itself to commend itself to us
Thoughts?
SR
