Words make the best playthings. Take the knitting-related words tink and frog. Ask any serious knitter, “Have you tinked or frogged lately?” Wait for the smile.
T-i-n-k. K-n-i-t. To tink is to unknit one stitch at a time, from one knitting needle to the other. You tink when you discover a mistake that you made only a few stitches back.
You frog, on the other hand, when you discover a mistake several rows back. When you frog, you slide all the stitches off your needles and then rip them out by pulling the yarn. It feels like unzipping a zipper except that when you finish frogging, you have a pile of squiggly yarn in your lap. It’s called frogging because you rip-it, rip-it.
Lately, I have tinked, and I have frogged. When it dawns on me that I have to undo a bit (or a lot) of my work, I might groan. I might cry. Then I remember the whimsical word for what I’m doing. I’m tinking. Or I’m frogging. I’m in the company of all the tinkers and froggers who came before me. I am not alone. This specialized terminology, no doubt created by a couple of knitters sitting around drinking wine, reminds me that I’m part of a community of yarn lovers who have done their share of ripping out.
You’re not unraveling. You’re tinking. You’re frogging. You relax. You’re having fun again. All because someone invented a couple of words that say so.
