ROPE KNOTS PART 1

I went online to look up the name of the knot I had made in a rope so I could put it in one of my stories and sound intelligent. Take a look at this website: http://www.proknot.com/html/rope_knots.html. It lists 24 knots (I counted them) - but you have to click on one to see a picture of it. Really? I looked them over and saw "buntline hitch." What's a bunt, anyway?

I looked it up. A bunt is "the bellying part of a square sail," and you pull it up with a buntline, of course. Who didn't know that?

Then I clicked on it. (Shouldn't have. I had other things to do that day.) Buntline hitch - "Pass end of the rope through shackle." OK. Though I've heard of "shackles and chains," on this particular morning I just wondered what a shackle was, exactly. (Curiosity killed the mouse, you know.) So I looked it up.

Shackle - "also known as a gyve."

Gyve - "a fetter especially for the leg." It's often used with manacles. It comes from the word 'give.' If your leg is shackled, where's the "give" I wanna know!?

Manacle - "usually a set of two metal rings that are fastened about the wrists and joined by a metal chain." So why don't they just call it hand cuffs? Who knows? (By now you're probably thinking, "Who cares?")

That was just the first knot I looked at. To be continued . . . .