Well! The BBC does have a sense of humour, of sorts … ;-) Just kidding, you’re great! In their h2g2 offshoot site, under The Guide to Life, the Universe and Everything (the name is an adapted version of Douglas Adams’ book of similar title), they have a guide to knocking on doors! Alex Ashman has managed to track down an impressive grand total of fifteen reasons that somebody might knock on a door – for your reference and satisfaction of curiosity here they are (thankyou Alex):

The following are times when it is usually appropriate to knock on a door:

1. As a way of asking to enter through the door.
2. As a way of asking to speak to someone.
3. As a way of getting someone to open the door so that an oversized object such as a parcel can be delivered to them.
4. To get someone’s attention so that you can shout a message to them through the door while not expecting a reply.
5. In order to wake someone up in the morning.
6. As a way of determining if the person who is going to let you through is actually on the other side of the door or if you’re going to be stuck out in the cold for a rather long time.
7. As a way of getting the people on the other side to stop making as much noise.
8. In order to enquire whether there is someone in the room already, for example in a toilet.
9. As part of a futile bid for freedom after trapping a limb in the closing door of a London Underground train.
10. As a means of indicating that you would rather like to leave somewhere as a matter of urgency.
11. To let someone know that their chimney is on fire.
    
12. To determine whether the door is secure against potential burglars.
13. To be generally very irritating. An example of this is knocking on the door and then leaving quickly so that there is nobody around when the door is opened. This is commonly known as ‘knock down ginger’ and ‘knock and run’.
14. To determine whether a wooden door is hollow.
15. To bring good luck and ward off evil spirits - in European culture the act of knocking on wood is lucky.

I believe, even in this electronic, information overloaded age, it is rare to find such an in-depth guide on such a mundane subject. Therefore, we’ve got to follow it up! I read the Guide to Knocking on Doors with door-knockers in mind, and came up with several points of difference between the two techniques.

It is noted that many people continue to knock on doors, despite the invention of the door bell. However, if there is a door knocker, I think its novelty value would easily override the convenience value of the door bell! And besides, the noise is quite often much louder.

Most of the reasons for knocking on a door listed above are the same whether you are knocking with your knuckles or a knocker … but there are some cases when you either couldn’t or wouldn’t use a knocker. For example, not too many people would keep a door knocker on their toilet door! Unless it was an absolute must-have. It might be a bit frightening to the person inside, too, compared to the timid and gentle usual knock on the toilet door! Unfortunately trains don’t have door knockers either, and if they did, I don’t think they would help you get your stuck limbs out…

Knocking with a door knocker to determine whether a door is secure against burglars would also seem a bit pointless, as would knocking to determine whether a wooden door is hollow – in either case, you can only determine the security of the knocker plate by knocking on it! I also think that knocking on wood doesn’t really have the same superstition value when you do it with a tool – a door knocker.

The other drawback of door knockers compared to your bare hands is that it is much harder to be musical with a door knocker! To counterbalance this though, when you do get a tune out in proper rhythm on a knocker, at least everyone can hear the results of your efforts and appreciate them.

It is also noted that professional door-knockers (the people!) may use spoons to knock on doors … these people most likely find door knockers a welcome relief on their knuckles, but also their eyes.

We love them because they are just nicer looking and more interesting than a plain door!

Photo credits: Kitty by Lea Elinor Nielsen

          

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