This page says that "Farmer's Hat" can be used to describe a shape of empty points, but is this really correct?

My initial reaction was indeed that using "farmer's hat" for the shape was just something someone had made up and was not very useful, but I was reluctant to completely get rid of the word, but now I feel we should. We can and should use Davies' term, but it does not really roll very smoothly off the tongue.

Without getting back into the great "nakade" debate, when I learned this shape a billion years ago it was simply called "4-moku nakade", which was completely unambiguous, short, and easy to learn. Of course, this assumes, first, that you have the "correct" (my) interpretation of "nakade", not the vacuous and meaningless version that it is any move inside, but rather a killing move in the middle of one of the specifically killable shapes, and second, that you can also use the term "nakade" as a kind of abbreviation for the shape which is killable by the actual "nakade" move.

The Japanese approach of "n-moku nakade" works well because the use of the "nakade" makes the terms instantly recognizable as referring to a killable eye space inside an enclosed group. And the 4, 5, and 6-moku nakade shapes are unique (there are two 3-moku nakade shapes, of course). English terms like "four-space pyramid" fail to achieve a similar economy of meaning. A good English-ization would involve one word with the "nakade" connotation. Perhaps "killable four spaces" or "four-point (shape) killable shape" or "killable four-pointer" would work for the shape, and "four-point (space) killing move" or "four-pointer killing move" for the actual move. But I guess no-one's looking for alternative English terms for such basic concepts now, 20 or 30 years later.

-- Bob

The term Farmer's Hat for the empty points has popular usage and many English speaking Go players recognize what is meant.

Personally I always think of it as a "dead T shape" but I've not written any books on the subject.