Apparently, a bowline is pronounced bow-lin. I’d like to know if this applies to any other knot names, eg, is buntline a bunt-lin, or tautline a taut-lin? Cheers.
And when you write “bow-lin”,
how do we know
whether it’s the bow (of a ship)
or a shoelace’s bow?
–Anon., II
A quick glance at my old Webster’s dictionary indicates that for bowline & tautline, both pronunciations are acceptable, and that the usage as a knot is a secondary definition.
Me too has interested how correctly to say this word, and I have looked at a transcription in the dictionary on-line. Correctly --BOW-leen.
Begs the question re “BOW” (like “sow”) :
how, as “ow” in “cow”
or long-O of “tow/know/blow”?
Roo’s “old Webster’s” could be … what? “Webster” got taken
broadly by various makers,
G&C Merriam’s line sustains the name (and is now decades
late for a new full version, successor to “3rd New”).
(I can check back through G&C to 1909 ed. if not
also an earlier one; then have the famous “2nd Ed.” (1934)
as well. And micro-copy of the OED.)
(-;
Ashley shows both (plus I think a third) way of saying it. I prefer bow line since to my little knowledge it was a knot used when a square sail was added to the front of a ship. the line running to the bow of the ship. but what the heck each to his/her own so long as one ties it correctly. HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE