Tying in-the-bight, and tying with-a-bight : NOT the same !

[xarax]

   A knot is tiable in-the-bight of a line, means that we can tie ( and untie ) it, without using any of its ends - without tucking and/or un-tucking them throughout any opening of the knot, at any time. However, this does not mean, of course, that we can not tie this knot NEAR the end of the line !    And it also does not mean, as some people seem to believe, that its two ends go to / come from opposite directions = that is can only be tied somewhere in the middle of a straight, tensioned line. Where the two ends of a tiable in-the-bight knot are pointing to, is a matter of geometry - TIB is a matter of topology.
  A knot is tiable with-a-bight of a line, means that, on top of the knot being tiable in-the-bight, we can tie ( and untie) it using one ( or more ) bight(s), as double line(s) with an accessible end : the tip(s) of t bight(s). This is a restriction of the general TIB condition, and the knots that are tiable with-a-bight are far fewer than the knots that are tiable in-the-bight. All the former can be tied as the later, but not vice versa. So, when a knot is also tiable with-a-bight, we know more things about its topology, than when it is just tiable in-the-bight. We can say that it is one (or more) double-line stopper(s), tied on the middle of the same line. 
   Generally speaking, we prefer to have a knot that can be tied with-a-bight, because we just use the bight(s) as double line(s) with accessible end(s) - the tip(s) of the bight(s). If we can not do this, but we have to do other, more complex manipulations of the segments of the rope to tie it in-the-bight, the tying method/procedure seems more complex, and more difficult to be memorisable and remembered. The simplest loop that can be tied with-a-bight, is the overhand loop, while the simplest knot that can be tied in-the-bight, but NOT with-a-bight, is the slipped overhand knot ( often used as loop in the Trucker s hitch ).

   ( At the attached picture, a tiable with-the bight(s) double loop ( two bights ).

[Tex]

I think there are at least 2 senses in which things can be tied with a bight and in practice some in-between even. 

As an in-between case, for example, I recently had a spool of cord that I didn't want to cut, but I wanted to tie a slipped buntline a meter from the end, around a post.  So I tied the slipped buntline with (using) a bight.  I did not tie the whole buntline hitch with the bight, but neither was it only the last tuck; rather it was the whole clove hitch AND the last bight was even, of course, tied with the bight (making a bight in the bight).

Of course this isn't a buntline with a bight in your sense, because I did not end up with the same buntline I would have if tied in the end, however I think the way I described it would make sense to any knot tyer. 

I don't think that it is wise for a community to try to fool with standard grammatical elements.  It will backfire.  You have to allow that at times people will understand what you mean from context and that other times the words will have the flexibility to be used as they are normally linguistically used.

[xarax]

   You tied half of the knot the one way, and the rest the other way - but I can still distinguish between the two.
   When you use the bight as a double-line end, and you never spread its legs to let another part of the knot to be reeved though it, you tie with-a-bight. When you tie something that is essentially a retraced stopper, you tie with-a-bight. To my mind, the distinction is clear, and whatever is clear, is also useful, in our effort to understand things, and what we are doing with them, and, finally, to understand what we are.   

[Tex]

It doesn't sound like we disagree the, but in your original description you said there are fewer things that can be tied "with" bight than in.  And well, that's not quite as true when you consider examples like mine.  Of course these examples produce knots with un-necessarily retraced parts (they don't need to be retraced to make the knot work the way the knot works), which is not what you were talking about, but I think you just unintentionally omitted that things like this can also be tied with a bight.

An interesting thing I just noticed though, maybe not useful but I think quite interesting, is if you tie the buntline this way (but with no object in the loop), tying a clove hitch with the doubled bight around the single standing end, and then don't slip it , but just take the bight and do the halter and collar thing, then you have the reverse reeved clove-hitch bowline but capsized into its noose-like form. (I believe tying two half hitches instead of a buntline gets you the forward reeved version).  It's is extremely easy to recapsize it to its bowline form while dressing it.  You only need to tug the bight and return eye leg while it's loose and it snaps easily to the bowline, then figure out which parts to pull to tighten.  So this is an alternate method for tying all of these kinds of TIB bowlines.

Furthermore you can tie what I've called the double-sided versions (ie the fully retraced bowlines) by instead using the bight for the whole thing, ie tying clove hitch with the bight around the two standing ends.

Maybe the only use for this is baffling your friends by making them think you are tying two half hitches and suddenly some kind of double bowline magically appears. Maybe it could be helpful for discovering some new bowline variants?  I doubt it though.

[xarax]

you said there are fewer things that can be tied "with" bight than in. 

    I said this, indeed, because it is true. ALL knots that can be tied with-a-bight are TIB, but all knots that are TIB can NOT be tied with-one or more-bights. Therefore, because any subset has always the same or fewer elements than the whole set...

[Tex]

Technically this is true, but my point is you can take any non TIB knot and tie it with a bight.  Of course technically you won't have that knot, you'll have a knot tied with two strings instead which is in that sense, TIB.  Well if I use twisted rope, I have three strings in the first place so. Ok they don't connect to each other at the end, but..   

I could cut the loop at the end with a knife if I wanted to really get snarky.    In the end you're right that the buntline is just as much TIB as it is TWB.  We would normally say it is not either, but to the extent we include this, then it is both.

There is no disagreement, just pointing out a nuanced perspective that might change the impact of the statement some.

[Dan_Lehman]

An immediate point is that the two expressions' uses
show how differently "bight" is interpreted --from a
straight, unknotted line to a folded one!
(Non-knotting definitions, IIRC form one dictionary-diving,
vaguely suggest the curvature aspect --though one, for
maritimers, of LESSer curvature than a "cove", IIRC
(there was also some inland-waterway meaning,
more accenting curves.)


--dl*
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