Many people have never heard of lanyards and are not quite sure what they are. They may say it has something to do with ship’s rigging to secure an object and that would be perfectly correct. But there is a far more common form of the lanyard in everyday use. It’s therefore surprising when they realize just how often lanyards occur in our lives often right under our very noses. In fact there is probably a very good chance that you are using at least one lanyard, if not several, in your house or upon your person right now. So what are lanyards? A lanyard is a piece of rope, string or cord that is tied to something that has a high possibility of being dropped or lost. The lanyard is then attached to the body in some way, often worn around the neck or wrist, which keeps it within easy reach but stops any possibility of it being dropped.

Lanyards were originally worn in military situations with pistols and swords to guarantee they would not be dropped. There was a particularly high likelihood of losing these weapons as many of the soldiers formed part of the cavalry and were mounted on horses. The lanyard kept the pistol or sword attached to the soldier while it was in its holster or scabbard or after it was drawn, but was easily detached when the soldier needed to actually use the weapon. Lanyards were also used in a similar way with whistles that were needed for troop communication. As the years went by, lanyards became more decorative taking the form of different colored braided patterns and being worn on the shoulder of the soldier’s uniform to signify the soldier’s regiment. This is still the case today if you happen to get the chance to watch a military procession.

Today lanyards abound in our world and provide the same benefits as they did in the military but with many more applications. A company will make a single lanyard out of just about any material possible as long as it has the flexibility to connect around a person’s wrist or neck. We therefore see leather, plastic, metal chain, fabric, satin and nylon lanyards and even beaded lanyards. In fact if you head on down to the local weekend market, once you get past the vendors selling plastic storage boxes, patio cushions and skinny low rise jeans, you are more than likely to find a stall where the owner has a range of braided leather lanyards and a beaded lanyard or two that they have made as a hobby and are now selling as a way to get money. They may even be selling custom name badges to go with them. The beaded lanyards are often made to look like a necklace so that they are a little bit more appealing. Because of the wide range of materials that lanyards are made from, they also come in a large range of colours including white, green, orange, blue, black and a combination of the these. In fact the black lanyard appears to be the most popular of these.

This could be due to the rise of technology in the form of music mp3 players, USB sticks and digital cameras. These are items that are of great value and yet are easily dropped or misplaced. Most of these items now come with a small loop built into the body of the device that a lanyard is attached to and these lanyards are generally black in color to suit the black or silver colour of the gadget.

There are many other uses of the lanyard in our world. The id lanyard has become one of the more common uses with many employees requiring ID cards to be readily available for access into and around their places of work. Id lanyards are normally hung around the neck. Neck lanyards are more common than wrist lanyards for two reasons. It is far more difficult to lose an item attached to a cord around the neck than it is to lose an item attached to a cord around the wrist. Secondly, the longer cord of a neck lanyard can simply be wound around the wrist several times to form a wrist lanyard. Because it can be difficult trying to swipe an id card while it is attached around the neck, many staff now use a retractable lanyard. This form of id badge lanyard has a retractable badge holder attached to it that allows a nylon cord attached to a spindle to be unwound allowing the badge to be pulled away from the body without having to remove the lanyard from around the neck. Retractable lanyards make life far less stressful for corporate employees who are always swiping their id card to every few minutes to get from one department to another.

The key lanyard is used in a similar way to id badge lanyards but instead of a name tag, key lanyards are used to hold a set of keys, attached via a clip, around a person’s neck and are very useful for people in the security industry or simply for people having fun at the pool where they are free from worrying about what to do with their keys.

Other areas that use lanyards include medical, fashion, hardware, school, college and sport. Often personalized lanyards are used for attaching medals that become the victor’s prize. The most well known example of this is in the Olympic Games where first, second and third place getters stand on the podium to receive gold, bronze and silver medals that are attached to lanyards printed with the Olympic logo and passed over their heads. Even safety lanyards are now used in any factory having machinery that must switch off automatically if the operator becomes indisposed. This is a fancy, customized lanyard that clips to a cutoff switch on the machinery and attaches around the wrist of the operator. If the individual operator suddenly faints, his body weight pulls on the lanyard, which in turn, activates the cutoff switch. This is a cheap, simple tool that could save the life of a machinery operator.

Promotional lanyards are often bought at wholesale by corporate business as a gift for their staff particularly if there is a conference coming up. By buying in this way, the business gets relatively cheap lanyards even though they are usually imprinted with the company’s logo and colours and are customized for use as a lanyard keychain or id badge holder. These custom lanyards also help the staff members to feel appreciated whilst giving them something that they will find useful in everyday life.