Language Matters

I have been weaving long enough that I was part of the growth of weaving in the mid-70s, part of the shrinking of practitioners, part of the recent growth in interest again.

As such I have a library of books that span all of that time.

One of the things the level one Olds students do is write a comparative book review - comparing two books to the course curriculum.  Mary Black is frequently one of the two.  Also Debbie/Deborah Chandler/Redding.

Mary Black wrote her book in the 1940s.  It was always intended to be a textbook, and it is reflective of the time it was written.  In other words, it's dated.

By the time Redding's Learning to Weave was published I had already been weaving for quite a few years and I didn't see the need to purchase a beginners book, so I don't actually own that one.

My weaving class textbooks consisted of Mary Black's book, Shirley Held's book Weaving and M. P. Davison's green book.  Regensteiner's book was also recommended as additional reading.  So those were my first books.

Over the years as I learned more, I bought books to add to my library.  As I gained in knowledge, I fine tuned my interests and bought more specialized books.  Since I had a connection to Sweden, several of my books were purchased - originally in Swedish - reflecting that interest.

I also bought English books, partly because they seemed more...technical...to me.  Since I was interested in weave structure, I wanted to know more about how threads could move through the cloth to create pattern.

The above photo is just a very small selection of books from my library.  Some I rarely use (the Regensteiner, for example) some are used infrequently, but consulted for specific information, some I just can't bear to sell.  Yet.

What these books have in common is the variety of weaving terms that get used.  There is not a standard language for things.  Or wasn't, when I began.  With the growth of the internet and the popularity of Handwoven, weaving terms have swung more and more towards American usage.

Someone commented recently that Mary Black only used the word 'sett' to refer to the colour order of a tartan.  That's because she tended to use 'set' for the number of epi/ppi, not the American 'sett'.  If you look through Black's book she always refers to epi, never to 'sett' to indicate density.

Having a broad based approach to reading books, I am familiar with the many varieties of terms - portee and pourrey cross, for example.  Heald instead of heddle (British vs American usage), batten instead of beater (ditto), woof for weft (woof now being referred to as 'archaic' usage).

Other cultures have different approaches to weaving.  Swedish weavers don't have 'names' for all the different overshot patterns that Davison lists in her book - or Black in hers.  Instead they tend to group weaves by category of structure.

I'm sure other cultures with other languages probably show similar differences.

But I don't speak those other languages, so I have to communicate in English.  On the other hand, I am Canadian enough that I well remember that the 'proper' spelling of colour is, well, with a 'u'!

Lately I have noticed that more frequently we are seeing dying being used instead of dyeing.  I'm sure it is a combination of auto correct (or auto carrot as one person I know says, or auto INcorrect as a friend and I call it) plus a lack of knowledge on the part of editors who either don't know or don't realize that dye in the past tense is actually dyed and that while dying is a perfectly good word it doesn't mean to add colour to yarn/fibre/cloth!

Having an editor who actually weaves was very important to me. I didn't want someone who really didn't understand the craft cutting the manuscript indiscriminately.  Having an editor who not only understands the language of weaving, but also has familiarity to the processes meant that we could cut right to the chase - make sure that my words were as clear as we could make them for others to read.

I am on tenterhooks right now as she finishes doing the part I could not face.  I am trying very hard to be patient while she does what needs to be done.  My schedule for Sept-Nov was such that if I were doing this by myself I couldn't have touched it anyway.  So having someone else work on it means that we are still on track for publication in early Dec.

If you hear a ginormous sigh of relief on Dec. 2?  That will be me, pushing 'send' on the ms file...