It’s not unusual to refer to an object using a letter of the alphabet whose shape resembles that object. Maybe the most familiar example is the T-shirt. Spanish uses different words for that item in different countries, with camiseta probably being the most widespread. Still, Spanish speakers in the United States do often say T-shirt, and according to Wikipedia so do speakers in Panama, presumably because of the long presence of Americans in the Panama Canal Zone. Some T-shirts, by the way, have a V-neck, which Spanish apparently refers to as escote en V.
When it comes to the I-beam, whose cross section gives a capital I with cross strokes at the top and bottom, Spanish says viga en I and also, according to the Diccionario de Arquitectura y Construcción, viga de doble T, where we have to imagine a capital T superimposed on an upside down one.
And what about the decussation, for which Spanish similarly has decusación, in the title of this post? First a definition: in anatomy, a decussation is ‘a crossing of bands of nerve fibers in the brain or spinal cord.’ The term is taken straight from Latin decussātiō, with stem decussātiōn-. The American Heritage Dictionary says that noun was based on decussus, which meant ‘the number ten’ and ‘the intersection of two lines.’ The connection is that the Romans used their letter X to represent the number ten, and that letter consists of two crossing line segments. For more about decussation itself, you’re welcome to follow up with a Wikipedia article.
© 2018 Steven Schwartzman
Spanish-English Word Connections 
Nov 27, 2018 @ 20:13:36
Two more come to mind: the C-clamp, and S curves.
I poked around a little to see if I could figure out whether camiseta and camisole are related. Both garments have the same shape (or did, until camisoles began to show up without sleeves), and I wondered if both might have developed from camisa.
As for decussation, I couldn’t help wondering if a certain fading coneflower might be said to have had decussative tendencies.
Nov 27, 2018 @ 22:55:53
Yes, camiseta and camisole both ultimately trace back to Late Latin camīsa, which is also the source of French chemise.
It’s imaginative of you to link decussation to that fading coneflower:
I hadn’t thought about C-clamps and S-curves, but I did consider including A-frames.
Nov 28, 2018 @ 07:37:07
Funny, how the mind works. My first thought on awaking this morning was, “O-rings and D-rings.” The A-frame should have been obvious, but I never thought of that one.
Nov 28, 2018 @ 07:44:29
And I’ll bet there are others that neither of us thought about. U-turn could be one.
Nov 28, 2018 @ 07:48:35
And a U-turn might be called for if someone forgot to pick up the J-bolts needed for a little project back at the A-frame.
Nov 28, 2018 @ 08:01:10
That’d be more industrious than catching up on your Zs.
Nov 28, 2018 @ 08:06:35
Touché!
Dec 10, 2018 @ 08:23:35
The Wiki article on decussation was fascinating. It seems nature already has the patterns.
What also came to mind was the ‘figure-of-eight’ bandage which is ‘vendaje en ocho’, and there is also the ‘cravat’ bandage, aka ‘triangular :
https://goo.gl/Z6dq7K
which is also ‘vendaje en corbata’. I thought you might enjoy that illustration coming from a mathematical background.
Dec 10, 2018 @ 08:35:12
Types of ‘cravat’ bandages:
http://emp.byui.edu/evansk/Cravatbandages.htm
Dec 10, 2018 @ 10:11:46
And speaking of cravats, you’ve reminded me that the main character in Edna Ferber’s novel Cimarron is Yancey Cravat.
Dec 11, 2018 @ 08:01:50
How interesting that his name would be Yancey Cravat, but then all the settlers were of European descent. Edna Ferber won the Pulitzer in 1924 for ‘So Big’, but Edith Wharton came before her with ‘The Age of Innocence’ in 1920, becoming the first female to win the Pulitzer. Among others were Willa Cather with ‘One of Ours’ in 1923, Margaret Wilson with ‘The Able McLaughlins’ in 1923, and Julia Peterkin with ‘Scarlet Sister Mary’ in 1929.
Dec 11, 2018 @ 08:05:57
Ten years ago we visited Edith Wharton’s home in Massachusetts, “The Mount”:
https://www.edithwharton.org/
Dec 11, 2018 @ 08:28:53
It’s beautiful. Her novels were known to depict high society. It. must have been a nice trip!
Dec 11, 2018 @ 08:53:30
It was, for many reasons.
Dec 10, 2018 @ 10:07:48
Speaking of math, I see from your link that the cravat gets turned from a triangle at one stage to a trapezoid at the next.
Dec 10, 2018 @ 10:13:34
What’s fascinating is that there’s a shape for all the wraps used in nursing and they’re all geometrical in design.
Dec 10, 2018 @ 10:15:22
Makes sense, doesn’t it? Math pervades everything.
Dec 11, 2018 @ 08:40:24
When I was a kid I didn’t do so well in math. However, when I had to take prerequisites in algebra and precalculus as an adult, I became much better, and it’s because I relied on my visual memory which has always been my forté, and the teachers were more modern in their approach too. Math has that element of abstraction (combined with memory), that scared the wits out of most people I knew.
Dec 11, 2018 @ 08:52:49
Yes, many people, maybe most, are math-phobic. So much depends on one’s background and teachers.