Most of those illustrations would have us fearing dyslexia. I knew a bos'un with a marvelous teaching aid for incomprehensible knots. It was a condemned length of manila ship's hawser thicker than your forearm. Dragging that monster on a flight deck with him yelling " the elephant comes out of the crater, around the redwoodtree and back into the crater" as students dragged that monster never failed to demonstrate the finer details. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> I learned knots to get my 'practical factors' signed off that I've never even seen again. But, like stripping a garand in the dark I can still tie them.