Interlock For Your Socks
A textile made of loosely woven fibers created by interlocking rows of yarns. This special structure gives the fabric extra bulk and stretch, which makes it especially useful for base layers, socks, and fleece fabrics.
This stuff was originally was called nonits (no nits), nognats (no gnats), or knats (know gnats, which is what you had to do if you forgot your knittenwear and were reduced to simply outsmarting the bugs, which isn't always so easy).
Now the label has been trimmed down to just knits, after a standard bit of linguistic decay that happens everywhere because of humanity's determined efforts to stamp out the most entertaining aspects of verbal corruption and depravity.
In olden times before window screens or bug netting, knit fabric was the first line of breathable defense against the buzzing hordes of suckers, pokers, stingers and biters that make backpacking into the top-notch sport it has become.
Knits in those days (the olden ones) were made of any stray fuzz that came to hand.
Horsehair, dog whiskers, goat beards, cat lint, and corn silk were all pressed into service with varying degrees of success until someone tried sheep fuzz and became not only pretty good at making knit goods but also immensely wealthy in a neolithic sort of way. (I.e., was suddenly easily able to buy a second spouse for use on rainy days.)
Following the invention of shears it was no longer necessary to drag sheep behind horses to rub off the fur, and life proceeded with much less friction (and howling) until the invention of explosives (or the cat grinder — no one is exactly sure which produces the most noise, though the latter was quickly outlawed as unsportsmanlike).
The prime qualities of knits are that they are soft, drape well, come in various thicknesses, are now usually made of durable, easily washed and rotproof synthetic materials, and they don't bark.
No known fabric does verifiably bark, but still, why quibble over details, or take a chance either? The real key item about knits is that the yarns going into them loop around thither and yon, locking and then yet again interlocking with one another, and end up not only agreeably barkless but pretty cushy too.
We could do worse, and lots of us have already, so take a look at the knits. They might help you with your recovery.
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so says eff: sporadic spurts of grade eff distraction
definitions: outdoor terms
fiyh: dave's little guide to ultralight backpacking stoves
boyb: dave's little guide to backpacks
snorpy bits: nibbling away at your sanity
last seen receding: missives from a certain mobile homer
noseyjoe: purposefully poking my proboscis into technicals