Wheels Tupay wrote:BASEBALL STARTS TOMORROW WOO HOO

Bucky wrote:"duck" tape was a cute nickname which then became a brand name due to some sniveling opportunists

According to the corporate history, during WWII the U.S. government commissioned Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Permacel to develop a heavy-duty tape that could keep water out of ammunition cases. J&J responded with a drab-colored, cloth-backed tape that was strong, easy to tear and, of course, waterproof. GIs purportedly nicknamed it “duck tape” because water beaded off the tape just like droplets slipping down a duck’s back. (What’s more, the fabric layered into the tape was called “cotton duck.”)

As the story goes, during the postwar suburban housing boom, contractors who installed heating and air conditioning discovered duck tape was handy in patching ducts, too. Soon, the green tape gave way to the silvery-gray stuff that better matched sheet aluminum, and the “duct” name ... stuck. As the tape had never been patented, scores of brands were making it, and only when faced with the need to differentiate did Manco trademark the Duck name, going so far as to develop a corresponding duck mascot for the packaging, rendered by a former Disney cartoonist.

No less than the venerable William Safire of The New York Times has researched and confirmed the above version of events (give or take), but there are still those—including, apparently, a former marketing honcho from Scotch tape maker 3M—who dispute it. Anecdotally at least, duct is the more intuitive term—and also more popular: A Google search for “duct tape” yields well over 4.8 million results, whereas one for “duck tape” produces a mere 2.3 million.

Ace Rothstein wrote:

smitty wrote:Can anyone help? I keep toting email notifications about posts made in the British Soccer Thread. How did this happen? Is there a way to shut it off?

Thanks.

did you subscribe to the thread by accident?

Bucky wrote:what

EndlessSummer wrote:The PF Changs in Glen Mills has a manager working there who, on a scale of 1-10, is about a 13. She's one of the more flawless humans I've ever seen.

Phred wrote:Today is a square root day. They don't come around to often so enjoy it.