What
is written is literalising
the knots,
not to be mistaken for what is spoken, that is verbalising
the knots.
What that means, if you write it, I mean, is that you know if the
knot is a knot or not. And what that means, if you say it, I mean, is
that you do not know if the knot is a knot or not. Or maybe you do
know, because there are other words around the knot and they make you
almost sure that the knot is a knot. Although things should not be
reduced so easily to the distinction I have just established between
written–known and spoken–unknown. Indeed, in both cases the
opposite may be true. Spelling mistakes happen. Mishearing happens.
But, if you did know it was a knot, and not a not, how would you
know? You would know because knot is a specific concept that is used,
as it were, in specific contexts. It is used much less often than
not, and in quite different ways. Is it? And it is also much less and
much more mutable than not. Less mutable in that the knot is a noun
or a verb, and you will hear or read the difference, with or without
knowing it. You will know/hear it is not not, for not is mostly
paired with or referring to a verb, whether you know it or not. It
could even be paired with to
knot.
Not also mostly needs a subject—attention, not always! It can also
take an imperative form, where the subject is absent, except as the
present enunciator. And sometimes even the enunciator is absent, as
in signs saying do
not walk,
in which case is there a subject that writes or speaks the not? The
knot refers to something specific in mathematics, in navigation, in
psychoanalysis, in philosophy—what does the not refer to? Does it
have a referent? Not in the same way. That’s how we can distinguish
a noun from a not. There is also a matter of temporality that we
could say knots have and nots do not. How many knots suggests a
duration and a distance, in order to make sense, whereas there cannot
be a quantity of nots that changes the significance of the not. More
or less knots makes a difference in reality, more or less nots is, in
the end, the same negation as one not: I am not-not-not-not going to
tell you!
Alas,
you are mistaken, adding nots can change the significance of the not!
While I
am not not going to tell you does
not mean I
am going to tell you,
it also does not mean I
am not going to tell you.
And a quantity of knots can become meaningless, like accumulating,
accumulating. What? I mean, not all knots have any relation to
duration, you know. I disagree. Knots, whatever the kind, must be
repeated.
—Eleanor Ivory Weber
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGTdW3xx4dM
https://youtu.be/tZ4gV48mlpQ?si=6l98pGWkU5tK85-n
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