Check (pattern)
Check (also checker, Brit: chequer, or dicing) is a pattern of modified stripes consisting of crossed horizontal and vertical lines which form squares.
The pattern is commonly placed onto garments and is, in certain social contexts, applied to clothing which is worn to signify cultural or political affiliations.
[2] The pattern's all-pervasiveness and simple layout has lent to its practical usage in scientific experimentation and observation, optometry, technology (hardware and software), and as a symbol for responders to associate meaning with.
Human uses for check predate its notable usage on the checkerboard in the board game chess, which was developed in its chaturanga iteration in the late 6th or early 7th century AD.
Check may not have a single foundation specific to a practice, region or type of material because it appears within nature and thus can be imitated and adapted.
Check appears in architecture as checkerwork (also chequer-work or diapering): a laying of bricks or tiles of two different materials or colours in an arrangement that, when finished, resembles the checkered pattern.
Following the battle of Culloden, wearing check or tartan was banned through the Dress Act 1746 in an attempt to control Scottish clans who supported the Jacobite rising of 1745.
After WW2, the popularity of check in high fashion increased as it was featured in the linings of Burberry coats and worn by celebrities including Humphrey Bogart.
[21] From 1910 to the late 1970s it was implemented into a variety of dresses manufactured by Nelly Don, which Mikyoung Whang[22] suggests, reflected the shifting role of women in the public eye as it offered an alternative to the Mother Hubbard house-dress.
5310-402 in the Woolrich middleweight fabric collection" became associated with lumberjacks, as those nearby in the Pennsylvania woods were the main customers for the woollen shirts that used it.
Check's notability as a distinctive and salient pattern has made it a commonly used signifier even compared with more pervasive descriptions like colour.
[32][33] Both favoured colours of the checkered variants of keffiyeh are popular in Yemen[34] as a result of the design's import into the region following the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight.
It was traditionally associated with rural farmers who worked under Ottoman rule but became a signifier of Palestinian nationalism following the 1936–1939 Arab Revolt in Palestine.
The design of this flooring consists of a black-and-white checkerboard pattern surrounded by a border or skirt of tessellating triangles, which too alternate between the colours black and white.
[46] The idea of the pattern check, as a symbol within Freemasonry, is thought to have originated from biblical representations of King Solomon's Temple.
Thus its placement within the lodge allude to the figure Hiram Abiff, the chief architect of the temple and the protagonist presented as part of the teachings involved in the third degree masonic stage.
The use of this pattern in and outside of ritual is symbolic, utilising contrasting black and white squares to display dualistic cosmology concerning the presence of good and evil in human existence.
[41][48]The checkered floor's existence as a physical representation of Freemason's moral law,[49] specifically concerning its connection to the principle of good and evil, is derived from the primacy of check in Solomon's temple.
[50][52] Check is further utilised as a symbol in freemasonry on some tracing boards, which are typically used as tools or artworks used to assist the teaching of lectures that explain various concepts of the organisation to new or inexperienced members.
A variation of the checkerboard pattern, named Sillitoe tartan, is commonly used as a symbol to identify police and other emergency services.
[citation needed] The check pattern has been utilised as a tool within multiple fields of scientific study to analyse the responses of fauna.
In the field of optometry, the check pattern has been utilised in a variety of visual acuity tests to measure the responsiveness of the pupil and a patient's ability to discern between different objects.
Check is also noted as a reliable pattern to use for camera calibration according to Chunsheng Yu and Qingjin Peng[67] because of its ability to be easily recognised visually by people and computers.
[68] The check pattern has been commonly implemented in the board of tabletop games to create a grid for players to dictate the movement of pieces.
[69] The vertical columns of the chessboard are called files and are labeled alphabetically from a to h, with a starting on the leftmost side of white's pieces, also referred to as the queenside.
