Duct tape is used in the heating air conditioning industry to join and seal metal duct work hence the name.
Why is duct tape called duct tape.
Originally it was called duck tape because of its waterproof abilities but the name was forgotten and changed to duct tape because it was originally silver like the ducts that it repaired.
After that duct primarily took over as the widely accepted appellation and it remains so today.
Over the years it has often gotten called duck tape just because of the similar sound.
The original duck tape.
Duct tape is cloth or scrim backed pressure sensitive tape often coated with polyethylene.
A variation is heat resistant foil tape useful for sealing heating and cooling ducts produced because the adhesive on standard duct tape fails and the synthetic fabric reinforcement mesh deteriorates when used on heating duc.
Duck in this sense comes from the dutch word doeck which means linen cloth.
There are a variety of constructions using different backings and adhesives and the term duct tape has been genericized to refer to different cloth tapes with differing purposes.
This is total crap.
It is silver and called duct tape because it was originally used at joints of heating and cooling ductwaork to stop air leaks that reduced the efficiency of the heating and cooling systems.
So duct tape is the answer except for the fact that tape manufacturer manco now shurtech.
There is even a brand of duct tape called duck tape.
It came in silver not green and was not used in wwii to waterproof ammunition cases.
This was when the color changed from army green to silver to match the color of the ductwork.