Can we talk about the four-in-hand knot, please?

[Ben]

I've been a full- or half-windsor guy since way back, but about once a year I think "You know, I'm an insouciant fellow with a devil-may-care attitude -- I'm going with the four-in-hand." And then I do and it looks like something a sixth-grader tied sitting in the back of a minivan without aid of a mirror, on his way to the dance that he really didn't want to go to but his mother made him anyway.

So I guess my question is, what the hell is with this got-damn knot anyway?

[chasea]

Meh. Its the lesser of the two asymetrical knots. Good if you have a long torso or a short tie. The tie needs some heft to it. Easiest to dimple well, perhaps.

Brad Pitt does it in Oceans 11.

Now you wanna talk stupid knots...

[Ben]

The lesser of the asymmetric knots... as in, there's another one?

I am all torso.

Actually, I could see some uses for the knot in the video. Looks like just the thing if you're about to be arraigned on a domestic violence charge in Hoboken.

[chasea]

Yes. And my spelling and grammar are dismal. Atrocious.

[nomuse]

In my very limited experience*, I tie the four-in-hand with a light, loose hand, while I tend to tie the half-windsor with a fairly tight hand. I think that you need the insouciance you mention in the hands to pull off the four-in-hand.

*I haven't dressed like a grown up in a decade or so and have just been playing along for the past few months when Chase's "How to get started on a budget" thread coincided with my need for a change. Ties were a regular bit of my life prior to my accidental computer-guy vocation.