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Without the freedom to make critical remarks, there cannot exist sincere
flattering praise
- Beaumarchais.

DEBUNKING THE RIDICULOUS AND ABSURD 
or ASHLEY's PIFFLE AND BALDERDASH 
( one example among quite a lot that can be easily found***
Look at one of my first finding  here  and there   )

This particular topic is as old as the two drawings given but I always desisted before from putting it in my pages, now at the risk of displeasing persons uncritically worshiping Ashley I have decided to "go public". 

Ashley is far from being an idol or a God and even God and Idols may be criticized ( IMO) who cannot be honestly criticized for his shortcomings.

I will  always urge people to read "critically".

"Critically" does not mean in the least "doing your utmost to rebuke or demolish".

It means : "apply all the might of your natural and educated intelligence to the honest, open, but not naive logical evaluation of what one read.( or hear, or see) *never, never* bow to authority ( high or low) or to reputation (good or bad), always make your evaluation without taking the author in account but only the idea that is proposed to your brain.

Ashley used   (if my reckoning if correct) the word "revers(ed)(ing)(ly)" over 150 times.

Almost each time it is an inadequate usage of the word meaning in geometry.

Knots being geometrical creatures the demand that words be used, in a technical
discussion about them, in a "guarded and strict" fashion is not too much IMO. 

Asking that someone asserting something should take the greatest pain to experimentally 
verify the validity of what is asserted is not an extremist demand IMO.

Ashley falls very short on both counts as far as I am concerned.

Bad use of words makes a message in the best case of null value, in the worst case it 
renders it outright stupid.

One of the very first thing taught in professional writing courses to would be Authors is to avoid, in a technical publication, using the same word with many different meaning.  
You may do that in literature but not in technical matters.

They say in French that synonyms do not exist : 
each word has its very particular and delimited shade of meaning so it is damageable when the usage of the word made by someone does not respect the meaning of this word in an educated environment who is applying the rule of meaning.

As I used to say to my children when they were young : "words have a very precise 
meaning and must be employed in a perfectly adequate manner". They say it from time to time when they hear a less than ideal use of a word with a twinkle in the eyes.

In technical publication it is best to strictly adhere to the rule  (unless when absolutely
unavoidable and then you better warn your readers that you intent a subtle changing in the meaning) : one word, the simplest available without being simplistic, one meaning only.

It is always best to avoid every day, unguarded and most often inadequate usage of words and concepts in technical discussions. Always map for your readers the meaning you are using the words for, forgot "usage", the more so if it is "run of the mill usage". 
Think "academic", not the "nearest bar way of speaking".

If you mean back face don't say reverse, 
if you mean upside-down don't say reverse, 
if you lean mirror don't say reverse, 
only meaning/signifying 'backtracking' or 'opposite direction', that is turning the directional vector by  Pi radian ( 180°) allow you to use 'reverse'.
(to clarify please read bat's belfry_3 : reverse and mirror, with another of Ashley's blunder ;  
you should think too about read again bat's belfry_6 now and probably bat's belfry_5 
about mirror)*

This blunder about CROWN and WALL seems to have been integrated absolutely
unchecked, unthinkingly, blindly in the knot tyers credo, that and Ashley less than adequate
usage of "reverse".
Lack of "esprit critique",  excess of laziness and feebleness when faced with the argument of
authority fallacy ? I cannot begin to guess the reason why.

This blunder is really of first magnitude and surely take the prize in the whole series !
"remporter le pompom" in French.
It is one more less than adequate use of "reverse, compounded with lack of intellectual
rigour and lack of authenticly solid knowledge of the structure of these particular knots....

Not only does it shows that Ashley has no great mastery of the technical meaning of some
words, but he has no deeply ingrained experimental set of mind when it comes to verifying
his beliefs and he can asserts false propositions with great aplomb.
Why would he have refrained :  sleepy and untrained readers follow suit eyes shut tight.


To wit, page 116 in #671
"the Wall Knot is the exact reverse of the Crown Knot.
If either of these knots is turned upside down it becomes the other knot."

How can one utter such a thing, how can this sort of  "sottise" can have been left 
unchallenged (that one plus almost a hundred of other bad use of "reverse") ?

Look at this picture, and this one, here is a comparative between the two


-- first it is stupid ( the word is feeble ! ) to compare what is not comparable.
Stupid to compare a knot of [PLUS] orientation with knot of [MINUS]
orientation.

When comparing two or more knot make really sure the comparability is
maintained ( see How to sign crossing and the first topic of Publication_2
about maintaining comparability )

Contrary to what one could uncritically believe, a WALL and a CROWN of the same
gyration ( CW , CCW ), are NOT comparable as they have opposite sign.

Only a WALL and a CROWN of opposite gyration ( one CW the other CCW) are
comparable as they have the same sign : either both minus or both plus.

Would you dare to compare the right hand of  pianist So and So with the Left hand
of pianist Such and Such, or the right hand of painter This and That with the right
hand of violinist That and This.
I hope you would not because one of the first thing taught in Sciences is :
"maintain comparability" at all cost.
If comparability is not maintained 100% then you go right into making an ass of
yourself uttering stupid assertions, with great force and conviction may be, but
stupid nevertheless.

-- second it is stupid to think that the "upside down" trick will put the orientation
PLUS or MINUS orientation of the crossing in the opposite way ( I have written
a lot about signing the crossing and knot orientation in my pages.) or really turn
by Pi radian ( 180°) the direction vector.
Standing on your head, feet up does not make you eat with your feet and jump
with your head!

-- not only one cannot compare the two knots Ashley drew but even granting acceptance
of the false premise that they can be compared,  it still remain very plain to see that putting
one upside down will never in a thousand million years transform it into the other and  not
even in its mirror image.

Truly reversing one of this knot would be exchanging SPart and WEnd , that is putting the
SPart WEnd vector in a 180° turn.
Even doing that will not put Crown into Wall conformation.

Here is proof in photographies, that even with a true reversing, that is turning the
SPart-WEnd vector by 180°, a WALL does not become a CROWN.
This one with larger cordages will be more explicit may be.

Now I will leave the Thomases The Unbelievers among you experiment with CROWN and WALL of opposite gyration and see what they can find. 
Being of opposite gyration they are of same sign which make them comparable . 

Just in case there exist one Lazy among the Unbelievers with an experimental bend of mind here is diagrams of the knots with opposite sign.

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*** they are so numerous that I find it a chore to make a paragraph of all the entries where something of null value or even downright stupid is uttered by just using "reverse" in an always changing meaning , sometime "back" , sometime, "upside-down", sometime "mirror;" sometime indeed a reverse that is "going back on the immediately previous route followed".

Try your brain on  just a few :.
page 22  Tracing paper ...
#64  #112  #179  #278  #539  #587 #617  #671 #696  #750  #759  #764  #767  #826  
#827  #841  #850   #915  #927  #1094  #1168  #1171  #2086  #2093  #2873  #1172 
 #1230  #1240  #1287  #1288  #1425A  #1426  #1427  #1432  #1466  #1477  
#1566#1567  #1582  #1583  #1561  #1660   #1676  #1681  #1727  #1736  #1800   
#1857   #1944  #1976  #2035  #2268   #2422  #2436  #2438   #2444   #2469   #2509  
#2521  #2535  #2575  #2602  #2767  #2684  #2716  #2761 #2846  #2892  #2922 
 #2988  #3021

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Copyright 2005 Sept - Charles Hamel / Nautile -
Overall rewriting in August 2006 . Copyright renewed. 2007-2014 -(each year of existence)

Url : http://charles.hamel.free.fr/knots-and-cordages/