The etymology of “hitches” is not far to seek. But first of the “hitch” itself. “_To hitch_, to catch, to move by jerks.” I know not where it is used but in the following passage—nor here know well what it means:
‘Whoe’er offends, at some unlucky time Slides in a verse, or _hitches_ in a rhyme.’—POPE.
So writes Dr. Johnson. Had he looked into the old “Voyages,” he would have found “hitch” repeated very often indeed.[43] From the nautical standpoint, he defines it accurately enough as “to catch.” Pope’s use of the term puzzled the Doctor, and he blundered into “to move by jerks.” But Pope employs it as a sailor would; he _hitches_ the culprit in a line—that is, takes an intellectual “turn” with his verse about him, or, as the poet puts it, suffers the person to “hitch” himself. To hitch is to fasten, to secure a rope so that it can run out no further. From “hitch” proceed a number of terms whose paternity is very easily distinguished. The “Blackwall hitch” takes its name from the famous point of departure of the vanished procession of Indiamen and Australian liners;[44] the “harness hitch,” from its form, which suggests a bit and reins; “midshipman’s hitch,” from the facility with which it may be made; “rolling hitch,” because it is formed of a series of rolling turns round the object it is intended to secure, and other rolling turns yet over its own part; a “timber hitch,” because of its usefulness in hoisting spars and the like through the ease of its fashioning and the security of its jamming. The etymology of knots, again, is largely found in their forms. “The figure-of-eight knot” is of the shape of the figure eight; the diamond readily suggests the knots which bear its name (single and double diamond-knots); the “Turk’s-head knot” excellently imitates a turban. To some knots and splices the inventors have given their names, such as “Elliot’s splice” and “Matthew Walker” knot. The origin of this knot is thus related by a contributor to the _Newcastle Weekly Chronicle_:—
Indeed, any old Dictionary would have supplied the meaning.
As does the “Blackwall lead,” signifying a rope taken under a pin.
“Over sixty years ago an old sailor, then drawing near to eighty years of age, said that when he was a sailor-boy there was an old rigger, named Matthew Walker, who, with his wife, lived on board an old covered hulk, moored near the Folly End, Monkwearmouth Shore; that new ships when launched were laid alongside of this hulk to be rigged by Walker and his gang of riggers; that also old ships had their rigging refitted at the same place; and that Matthew Walker was the inventor of the lanyard knot, now known by the inventor’s name wherever a ship floats.”