renaming turks heads

[Stagehand]

Thanks KnotMe for providing this subject.  I agree with your awareness and disagree with Roo's ignorance on this question.  Who will suggest the word was not born in 19th century Jingoism?  What did English sailors think of Ottomans? 
I like saying "Turks-head" in part because I admire things Turkish.  That does not make it right.
All Turks-head Knots are four-connected polyhedra.  All Turks-head Knots are polyhedra.

[Wed]

Especially as the TH is a pretty knot. Had I been a Turk, I'd be proud of the name.

[KnotMe]

...plumbing...

Many professions and crafts and such have terminology and linguistic traditions that occasionally cause troubles for some and not for others.  Just look at the names of some major league sports teams.  But we're not here to solve all the world's problems, we're just here to talk about knots.   

Perhaps someday ... the Alpine Butterfly considered slanderous to all broad winged insects.    I don't mean to seem facetious

Really?   

I understand your concern, Knotme, but is this the time?

Seemed like the time, that's why I brought it up.

Is the noble Turkshead (notice I didn't write it as "Turk's Head") to be the first to fall?  If so then perhaps the Chinese Button Knot should be next?

Speaking as someone of Chinese descent, I'm pretty sure we are fond if not proud of the "Chinese Button Knot".  Conversely, I would be very interested in the opinion of someone of Turkish descent on "Turk's Head" knots.  Or, indeed, anyone of a cultural tradition that wears turbans like, say, Sikhs.

[oldpete]

Question. If we get rid of the term 'turkshead' should I throw out all the books that mention it, including ABOK ? What about the Eskimo loop should that be renamed.  To me this is PC gone wrong.

[capellagroup]

Full marks.  Let sleeping Turks lie, I say.

[alana]

i understand and agree with a lot of what you're saying here

reposted from Google Plus

Because the name "Turk's Head" has always bothered me (if they wanted to be respectful, they probably would have gone with "turban" or something that didn't involve "head") I've been wanting to see if the Chinese naming offers anything less fraught.  To get that, we need more consensus though, unless I'm just looking in the wrong place.

...
 the flower-like appearance of the flat mat tightening as well as the hoop/band appearance of the cylinder tightening.
 ...  Of course, TH doesn't really handle those cases as such either...  Flower-hoop knot?  Flower-stream knot?

...
Coming back to English and the definition of a TH there's cylindrical/tubular braid or woven ring. 
... how about "Brunnian knots" ?  Look at the pictures, it's so close!     Yah, I know, that would just add tons of confusion and noise to math concept searches... but that'd be good for them, and you too.  8-)

when i first got into ring knots,
i didn't quite understand the reference of 'turk's head',
i immediately thought it referred to hat gear,
but didn't know what it looked like.

it occurred to me that maybe the knot had dark brown hair.

i can see that knots get a descriptive, even whimsical, name.
because calling a knot the "x = r * cos(phi) * cos(theta)" might not get across either.

as is naming of animals, like a seahorse;
the name was given because we've seen a horse first.

i was not sure of the reference to 'turk's' nor 'head'

in knotting matters magazine issue 33, 1990, mr lester copestake writes against the use of words turban and puggarree in settings other than referring to head gear.
(i found that issue thanks to the somewhat amazing k.m 1-100 index pdf! )

i don't particularly like the 'turk's head knot' description,
for reasons similar to knotme's comments,

and because there's other names the knots can go by,
like brunnian?, ring knot, ring mat, cylindrical knot, torus?, trochoidal, cycloidal ...
the originator of the spirograph came up with that universal name.

[KnotMe]

and because there's other names the knots can go by,
like brunnian?, ring knot, ring mat, cylindrical knot, torus?, trochoidal, cycloidal ...
the originator of the spirograph came up with that universal name.

Often when I'm trying to come up with terminology I try to borrow from math, due to the precision offered.  Flower hoops, ring mats, cylindrical braids are all good, but imply shapes that are not required because a mat/hoop is just a ring/cylinder/hoop or even sphere/egg waiting to be tightened around something appropriate.  Not to mention the cruciform or other topologies that THK are capable of.  Looking up trochoid, my math is not strong enough to know if the previously mentioned cruciform et al topologies are covered.

Perhaps the best thing to do is make a backronym for THKs.  Trochoid already starts with 'T'! 

[alana]

groovy idea with the backronym .. !

[ParLeijonhufvud]

I dunno, ppl.  I work in the plumbing trade and we have such terms as "black nipples" and "petcocks" and nobody cracks a smile.
Perceptions change over time and popular terminology may conjure images in the mind that might be far from the original concept.  True that some were originally way off the mark (I can still recall seeing signs for "N* Babies black licorice 5 for a penny"). (AAACK!  I just dated myself!)
Perhaps someday the Clove Hitch will be perceived as the "Devil's Knot" and the Alpine Butterfly considered slanderous to all broad winged insects.  I don't mean to seem facetious.  On the contrary.  I understand your concern, Knotme, but is this the time?  Is the noble Turkshead (notice I didn't write it as "Turk's Head") to be the first to fall?  If so then perhaps the Chinese Button Knot should be next?  I mean, doesn't that provoke the thought that the Chinese only button their clothing with knotted bits of string?
Again, I dunno... for myself I'd never considered a TH knot to be derogatory to anyone of Turkish descent but popular culture and thinking may have moved past me and if that is the case then I will yield.

Out languages are filled with words with a problematic origin. Either it was the tendency to use certain nationalities as a derogatory term (e.g. Portuguese pennant, or the modern Swedish "Norwegian restart" of a computer when you just cycle the power, just to take a couple of examples). Or using words with quite problematic origins (or significant periods of usage): the N-word perhaps being the most well known example, but in a Scandinavian context the above mentioned L-word takes almost the same connotations. Is the TH name as bad as those? Not being from that part of the world I can't really say, but I would be hesitant to use it in publicly without a disclaimer. And here in northern Sweden I would not use the word "L*pp" without making clear it was a direct quote or as part of asking for a better term.

And those kind of words may have degrees of build in "insulting power", but I think that out of respect for our fellow human beings we should strive towards eliminating disrespectful language. Perhaps someone would feel a bit of unease every time they hear it: why should I not want to improve the signals I send to those who rear or read my words?

And on that note I should send another polite email to the Sami language center asking if (a) there is any Sami context to the "L* knot", and if so (b) what the Sami name is (in the major branches of that language) and (c) what their literal translation would be: until then I will just call it the "Sami knot"

/Par

[alana]

Par's post did make me laff a bit, with 'norwegian restart', and i get it, here in australia we rib each other a little like that, not intentionally offensive, supposed to be in jest,
then i'm reminded that there used to be a slew of 'irish' jokes, and also 'blonde' jokes, and as i age, i find them truly not funny.
i have no idea about the offence of the term L*

i will look up 'polyhedra', as mentioned a few posts up.

[ParLeijonhufvud]

There is a fine line between friendly banter and insulting language. Having been on the receiving end of bullying most of my youth I'm keenly aware that things can be both, depending on the context. If there is a power imbalance. If it is only really goes one way. If there is an unpleasant history that is constantly being referred to.

So we can be pretty confident that the TH name was not created because British sailors admired "Turkish" headgear. And people in Sweden did not decide to call it a Norwegian restart because it was a clever way to quickly solve the problem. And when we called the oatmeal ball by the N-word when I grew up it certainly was not because Swedish 10 year olds in the 70's admired people of color (or their anatomy). And the L*pp word... I have lived in the US south, and people there use the N-word the same way some people here in northern Sweden use the L-word: I will not knowingly be part of that pattern.

And as to the old books: they where written then, when most people either did not quite understand the context, or had grown up mired in various prejudices (we modern people of do not have any prejudices...) and did not see it as wrong. I will gladly open the ABOK section on TH knots, but if I did it in a public/mixed context I would mention that yes, I know, the past is a different country, and sometimes they did stupid shit (word choice depending on the context).

Addendum: oatmeal balls (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oatmeal_ball) is a nice and quick unbaked pastry. The typical ones are with chocolate, but vanilla is also common: I make them with matcha tea powder. No bake means you can whip up a batch in a few minutes, with nothing but a bowl to mix them in.

[KnotMe]

I've been writing instructions for my Introduction to Chinese Knotting class.  While I'm not really covering THKs as part of an intro class, I do mention them in passing while talking about the Double Coin Knot.  For my purposes, I had settled on Closed Braid Knot, but was recently reminded that (at least some?)
 THKs are torus knots.

Redoing my research I see that I had already downloaded many of these papers and web pages more than half a decade ago.

Both my knowledge of THKs and topology is too weak to know if all THKs are torus knots.  J.E. Harvey mentions "irregular" THKs (which extra scallop bights) and I've heard the term "unorthodox" as applied to THKs but cannot currently find a definition.  I'd guess that all cylindrical ones are torus knots, irregular or not, so what about cruciform and other geometries?  Harold Scott says in A Guide to Multi, Single-Strand Cruciform Turk's Head that "A Cruciform Turk's head is simply the crossing of one Turk's Head by one other". I'd guess that that would map onto higher genus shapes??

Too much guessing and too little actual knowledge.  8( 

On the bright side, "Torus Knots" feeds perfectly into my thought about making a backronym for  ThKs and we need only find an 'H' to insert.