The Lanyard
A lanyard is a short cord that tethers a tool to the person who uses it. A knife lanyard looped around the wrist prevents the blade from falling overboard when wet hands fumble the grip. A whistle lanyard keeps the boatswain's call at the chest, ready to sound. A camera lanyard holds the device against a drop. The lanyard does not assist the tool's function — the knife cuts no better for having a cord attached. It prevents loss. The tool works identically with or without the lanyard; the difference appears only in the moment of failure, when the hand lets go and the lanyard catches what the hand did not.
On a sailing ship, the standing rigging is tensioned by lanyards rove through deadeyes — thick, round wooden blocks with three holes drilled through them. An upper deadeye is seized to the shroud. A lower deadeye is bolted to the chainplate. The lanyard passes back and forth through the holes of both, like a line through a block-and-tackle, providing mechanical advantage. Hauling the lanyard draws the deadeyes closer together, tensioning the shroud above. Every shroud on the ship — the wires that hold the mast upright — is tuned this way: inches of lanyard adjusted at the base determine the tension in hundreds of feet of rigging aloft. The lanyard is the fine adjustment at the foot of a system that reaches the masthead.
A firing lanyard on a cannon or gun is a cord long enough to let the crew stand clear of the recoil. One end is tied to the firing mechanism — the friction primer, the flintlock, the trigger. The other end is held by the gun captain, standing several feet to the side or behind the piece. A sharp pull trips the mechanism and the gun fires. The crew is beyond the arc of the recoiling carriage, which may jump several feet rearward. The lanyard separates the act of firing from the consequence of having fired — the decisive pull and the violent recoil occur at different locations, connected only by a length of cord. The lanyard is distance made functional: long enough for safety, short enough for control.
Three lanyards: a tool tether, a rigging adjuster, a firing cord. Each is a short length of line that connects an action to its consequence across a gap. The knife lanyard connects the hand to the tool across the gap of a fumble. The rigging lanyard connects the deck to the masthead across the gap of the shroud's length. The firing lanyard connects the crew to the gun across the gap of the recoil. In each case the lanyard is the cord that maintains the relationship while providing the distance the relationship requires.