For relaxation, I often read “There I Fixed It“, a blog of funny bad repairs, often featuring duct tape.
My wife recently added our own contribution to the genre. Her favorite sandals had a strap fail (disconnecting from the sole). She wanted to replace the sandals, but the style she likes is no longer made. Rather than switch to some less comfortable style, she took some red duct tape and reattached the strap:
Aside: I’ve always preferred the term “duct tape” to “duck tape”, believing that the latter was a vulgar corruption of the former. I heard from several sources that “duck tape” is actually the older term, and checked with Google ngrams:
Sure enough, around WWII when this style of adhesive taped first became available, “duck tape” was the more common usage, but the term “duct tape” became the standard term around 1973 and now clearly dominates.
Dang! Data messes up our preconceptions again! Ya gotta wonder, why duck?
Comment by Tim Erickson — 2013 October 15 @ 21:00 |
I’ve been told it was because the tape was waterproof.
Comment by gasstationwithoutpumps — 2013 October 16 @ 12:03 |