Page 34 - Frank Rosenow "Seagoing Knots"

If a choice has to be made in referring to a knot, as with reef and square
knot, I would pick the origin variety over the memory aid as it tells you (in
this instance at least) a great deal about the nature of the knot. The knot is
indeed better suited to finishing off a reef lashing or tie than to join two
ropes (a use to which it is often put) and the name tells you as much.
Unfortunately, there are knots with names that wander off absurdly.

Take the midshipman’s hitch. The only midshipman I can remember is
one that sat in the Telefonos office in Palma de Majorca, patiently waiting
to call the mainland. He looked homesick and in no way indicated that the
midshipman’s hitch is a rolling hitch tied on the standing part.

Maritime nomenclature can be confusing in other ways. Take knots,
bends, and hitches.
A knot, besides being a catch-all for the purposeful intertwining of line,
particularly refers to a symmetrical knob such as the drawn home overhand
knot.

A bend often refers to the joining of two free lines. One rope is said to
be bent to another.
A hitch that secures a line to an object (such as a mooring ring), is a
loop knot tied in the hand, or a knot that makes a line fast to another rope
which remains passive in making the knot. However, the studdingsail
halyard bend ought then to be a hitch so, while learning a useful rule of
thumb, beware of exceptions.

SEAGOING KNOTS