The military called the waterproof, cloth-backed, green tape 100-mile-per-hour tape because they could use it to fix anything, from fenders on jeeps to boots.
According to my Air Force mechanic in Vietnam uncle, they called it 100 mph tape, because that was roughly the speed it would peel off the fuselage of a plane.
PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
That article doesn’t cover it, but the reason its called duck tape, is because its predecessor was made from duck cloth (a think fabric) with “duck” being a loanword from Dutch “doek”. Modern duct tape was just an improved, standardized version of this.