TIL that "duck tape" is actually the correct/original version, and "duct tape" is a modern derivative.
I had always assumed it was the other way round, and some people simply don't know what a duct is so they substitute a similar-sounding, more common word.
Me too! The situation isn't helped by the registration of "Duck Tape" as a trademark for a specific brand of tape -- but that appears not to have happened until 1981, well after both names were in common use: https://trademarks.justia.com/733/00/duck-73300816.html
What an epic failure by the trademark office. That's as if a company had tried to trademark "Hammer" as a brand name for hammers, and the trademark office just said "Yeah, sure!"
They don’t check trademarks like they (are supposed to) do patents. You want a registration? Here you go. Now someone has to take it to court to see if it stands up.
Anyone can sue anyone else over anything. If those grocery companies actually fought them in court instead of caving in, Apple would get their ass handed to them.
Not a great example. After being found innocent in criminal court of murdering his wife, OJ Simpson was famously sued by her family and lost in civil court.
I used to be mad about this sort of thing too, until I learned that things are incentivized in such a way that encourages companies to at least make a nominal defense of their trademarks in order to maintain an edge in court for actual less-defensible violations of the trademark
Not to forget "Mail" for an email program. Made searching so much easier ... Not.
And never mind the dog named dog (a long time ago, some IEEE journal had a great cartoon where someone painted "house" on their house, "car" on their car, ... you get it. The cartoon illustrated an article about good and bad names for systems.
ever since i read the story about the "Max Headroom" guys about how they picked their name (because it was written at the entrance of every parking garage)
i think the best way of naming a company is to make it something that is said hundreds of times by people every day
"an apple a day" etc... wonder if I can name my comapny "the The company"
Ironically the kind of tape you actually use on metal ducting isn't even duck tape, instead it's a thin aluminum foil tape.
Duck tape kind of sucks for most temporary applications as it leaves so much residue behind. Gaffer tape is an awesome replacement (although quite a bit pricier).
Someone won an Ig Nobel for research finding that duc(t/k) tape is singularly bad on actual ducts. (Because the adhesive melts at normal heating-duct temperatures.)
Their acceptance speech was written in Seussian rhyme. "Do not use duct tape on ducts. Do not use it: t'won't stay stuck."
Sounds like “duck tape” is adhesive fabric tape (maybe water resistant?) and “duct tape” is shiny metal tape for connecting air ducting? And both names are used informally for either or both types of tape by most of the population?
And then so many people post “facts” about a clearly fuzzy issue and proceed to argue about who’s “right”. I’m getting real blegg/rube vibes from the whole argument here.
I believe it's professionally called foil tape, or sometimes HVAC tape, to distinguish the two. In product listings, you often see seohacks like "HVAC foil sealer duct tape", because consumers still search for duct tape.
> "Sounds like “duck tape” is adhesive fabric tape (maybe water resistant?) and “duct tape” is shiny metal tape for connecting air ducting? And both names are used informally for either or both types of tape by most of the population?"
This is how I always understood the situation, and then I've recently discovered the issue is further "muddied" by a brand name/trademark "Duck Tape" also, so that's fun...
I'm talking about how the term was used in the studios I was exposed to.
Even in that article, the two definitions are very, very close to being the same thing, and in the studios I was familiar with, both of the tapes the article defines would have been referred to as "gaffer's tape". They're just different varieties of gaffer's tape.
It's all just slang, though, so I'm not surprised that the definition varies from crowd to crowd.
It would be amusing if this were merely an elaborate citogenesis hoax and the original name was indeed "duct tape", but we're all being gaslighted now.
ISTR from my scout days that "ducking" is a fabric surround at the bottom of tent walls that you tuck under the groundsheet - probably from the same root, I guess - though few online dictionaries seem to have heard of it.
Yeah which explains that duck tape is not for ducts (or pipes) since it's made of fabric.
> She is often misattributed as the inventor of duct tape. However, numerous variations of adhesive cotton duck tape had existed for decades, nor did she invent the specific formulation of the popularized duct tape.
That is not what the thing you quoted says, or even correct. All duct tape is made of fabric and it is… well duct tape, so ducts were the intended use case when the name was created.
Duct tape has kinda become a general term for all cloth-based tapes though, so you can indeed find duct tape not intended for ducts, but the fact the name was originally “duck tape” has nothing to do with that.
I can find more [0] than [1] one [2] source that states that duct tape was ORIGINALLY used in duct work and that was later found out to be not good in duct work, so we don’t do that anymore. I’m a bit dumb, so are you saying that everyone else is wrong about history and duct tape never intended for ducts? That duct tape was not used for ducts all until 181A-P/181B-FX because it wasn’t allowed?
Even your own source on a separate page [3] says:
> After the war, duct tape became popular with the general public. One popular use was holding together ventilation ducts. Ironically, while this is a use that duct tape does not normally have today, the name stuck and is used to this day.
No matter how mundane a random claim posted on HN is, there is always a user with expert knowledge willing and able to respond with a "well actually...", citing incredibly specific details that I've never even tangentially heard about in my entire life until that point.
Nope, duct tape is for ducts and can't be made of cloth because the water would clearly seep through the cloth. There are strings in duct tape but not cloth.
The part I quoted says that duck tape is made of cloth and therefore is not duct tape.
I think people get confused because there is a brand of duct tape named Duck Tape. But even the Duck Tape packaging calls it a "duct tape".
> Nope, duct tape is for ducts and can't be made of cloth because the water would clearly seep through the cloth. There are strings in duct tape but not cloth.
I am sorry, but you are wrong. The term duct tape is specifically referring to “Duct tape: cloth- or scrim-backed pressure-sensitive tape, often coated with polyethylene.” We don’t even need to argue if it is good for use in ducts, it is not, I agree. However, that isn’t what we are discussing here. From Wikipedia:
“The ultimate wide-scale adoption of duck tape, today generally referred to as duct tape, came from Vesta Stoudt. Stoudt was worried that problems with ammunition box seals could cost soldiers precious time in battle, so she wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1943 with the idea to seal the boxes with a fabric tape which she had tested. … [Johnson & Johnson’s] new unnamed product was made of thin cotton duck coated in waterproof polyethylene (plastic) with a layer of rubber-based gray adhesive (branded as "Polycoat") bonded to one side. It was easy to apply and remove, and was soon adapted to repair military equipment quickly, including vehicles and weapons. This tape, colored in army-standard matte olive drab, was widely used by the soldiers. After the war, the duck tape product was sold in hardware stores for household repairs. The Melvin A. Anderson Company of Cleveland, Ohio, acquired the rights to the tape in 1950. It was commonly used in construction to wrap air ducts. Following this application, the name "duct tape" came into use in the 1950s, along with tape products that were colored silvery gray like tin ductwork. Specialized heat- and cold-resistant tapes were developed for heating and air-conditioning ducts.”
> The part I quoted says that duck tape is made of cloth and therefore is not duct tape.
The part you quoted doesn’t say that at all. The part you quoted says “She is often misattributed as the inventor of duct tape. However, numerous variations of adhesive cotton duck tape had existed for decades, nor did she invent the specific formulation of the popularized duct tape.” Did you quote the wrong thing? It’s simply saying that the duct tape Vesta Stoud developed was not the final product we know today, nor was she the first to come up with the idea.
> I think people get confused because there is a brand of duct tape named Duck Tape. But even the Duck Tape packaging calls it a "duct tape”
I can’t find a source at the moment, but I’ve read that it was also branded as duck tape because of its waterproof nature, making for some clever word play.
