My mother sent me this definition today:
haptic \HAP-tik\ adjective
*1 : relating to or based on the sense of touch
2 : characterized by a predilection for the sense of touchExample sentence:
Mark could tell the different kinds of yarn apart purely by haptic clues.
Sounds good to me, although my deciding sense is actually smell. I can tell 100% merino from 80% merino/20% cashmere by the faint whiff of goat, and linen smells different from hemp from cotton from silk, etc. And weird as it may sound, if you roll a fiber between your fingers up against your ear, you can hear a difference between mammals and bugs and plants, oh my!
I'll have to test my sense of (fiber)hearing. I usually go with my nose!
Posted by: Charleen | 2005.03.23 at 07:18 PM
WHAT!?! Your a spinning, dye-ing, and knitting goddess and you can tell fiber by smell, touch and audio wise? It's official I am just not worthy of reading your blog
Posted by: elka | 2005.03.23 at 08:36 PM
Fascinating! I confess it's never occurred to me to listen to my yarn. I like to smell yarn (confirmed yarn sniffer here), but I've never tried to tell the fiber composition by nose. I'll give it a try!
Posted by: Janice in GA | 2005.03.23 at 08:42 PM