duck tape?

[Jonathan Lighter]

It's a good thing I never had to refer to the stuff in writing, because for many years I believed it was actually called "Duck tape."  I assumed that "Duck" was a brand name.

I first noticed the phrase around 1980, and I misspelled it inside my head  for a good ten or twelve years until I saw "duct tape" in print.

Prior to 1980, I'd have called the stuff "heavy-duty adhesive tape" or, more likely, "you know, that tape they use, it's kind of gray usually."

JL

Margaret Lee <mlee303 at YAHOO.COM> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Margaret Lee
Subject: duck tape?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was at Home Depot the other day and saw duct
tape spelled as "duck tape" on the package
label.
Has anyone else seen this spelling? Is it an
eggcorn?




Margaret G. Lee, Ph.D.
Professor of English & Linguistics
and University Editor
Department of English
Hampton University, Hampton, VA 23668
757-727-5769(voice);757-727-5084(fax)
margaret.lee at hamptonu.edu or mlee303 at yahoo.com
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