Date: Wed, 22 Jul 92 13:13:21 -0400
From: clerk@sug.org (Bryttan Bradley)
Message-Id: <9207221713.AA04091@sug.org>
To: carolingia@bloom-beacon.mit.edu
Subject: Thought this might be of interest...


From: "Donald E. Eastlake, III, LJO2/I4 +1 508 486 2358  21-Jul-1992 1257" <dee@ranger.enet.dec.com>
Subject: FWD: Ductape (editorial in NY Times, Sunday 7/12/92)

From:	US1RMC::"sethb@fid.morgan.com" "Seth Breidbart"    13-JUL-1992 08:50

To seal air-conditioning or cooling ducts, one uses duct tape: strong,
sticky and waterproof.  The webbed cloth tape backed with plastic is
so sturdy that innumerable users have found innumerable other uses for
it: to bind up broken toys or furniture, patch holes in screens, fix
leaky downspouts.

Summer finds even more uses.  Duct tape seals plastic beach toys, torn
tents, backpacks and sleeping bags.  Look at the handles on
luggage going by on the airport carousel: duct tape.

But as duct tape solves countless domestic problems, it creates on
for language.  It's waht linguists call a juncture problem.  "Duct"
ends in "t" and "tape" begins with it; people tend to say "duck tape."

The term carries plausible connotations.  Duct tape is rubbery, webbed
and waterproof.  If it doesn't have anything to do with ducks, it
seems as though it should.

That's why Manco Tape Inc., aware that most folks think of ducks
instead of ducts when they purchase the product, has trademarked the
name "Duck Tape."  It packages the familiar gray tape with a bright
label and a cartoon duck that resembels one of Donald Duck's nephews
dressed for a weekend of home repair.

Thus does commerce infect language.  Or does it?  Manco executives
point out that the tape evolved from a waterproof material used to
seal ammunition boxes during World War II.  It was made form a
convas-like fabric commonly used in the military--and commonly known
as cotton duck.