Duck Tape vs. Duct Tape

@porwest (106157)
United States
August 25, 2025 12:24pm CST
I remember back in my early days of writing, which I started doing when I was 8 years old for whatever reason, that at some point I found a magazine called Writer's Digest and finally convinced my parents to get me a subscription and used to read it cover to cover. Looking back, there wasn't a whole lot that was useful between the covers. Writing is a talent. It's not something you necessarily learn how to do. You can either write, or you can't. But I do remember several articles and even advertisements by major brands that made it a point to understand the difference between what something is, and what is a brand. Companies spend a lot of marketing dollars to keep up their image, and so they want to make a strong distinction between them and anyone else selling similar products. For example, there are tissues, and then there are Kleenex. The two are not the same thing. Kleenex is a tissue, of course. But any tissue is not a Kleenex. Another example is ChapStick. It's a lip balm, but not all lip balms are ChapStick. Windex is a blue liquid used to clean glass, but any glass cleaner that happens to be blue and cleans glass is not Windex. The same applies to something like duct tape. There is that silver stuff we are all universally familiar with that is very sticky and quite useful, and then there's Duck Tape which is a brand of duct tape. Can you think of other things that we commonly mistakenly use the brand name for even when the thing we're using isn't the brand?
10 people like this
8 responses
@kaylachan (79267)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
25 Aug
You nailed the most common I think. I think there's another one, with Facetime. It's a product that invinted and introduced video calling, but I've seen people use it to describe a video call on literally any other service, too.
1 person likes this
@kaylachan (79267)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
25 Aug
@porwest Oh yeah, that too.
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@porwest (106157)
• United States
9h
@kaylachan Melanie reminded me of Q-Tip. I am actually guilty of that one.
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@kaylachan (79267)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
5h
@porwest I think I am, too.
• United States
11h
Xerox. Band-aid.
1 person likes this
@porwest (106157)
• United States
9h
Yep. Those are/were big ones. I am definitely guilty of Band-Aid, and as Melanie reminded me, Q-Tip.
1 person likes this
@JudyEv (361698)
• Rockingham, Australia
18h
I think 'biro' might be another one, or was at one time.
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@porwest (106157)
• United States
9h
I am not familiar with that one.
@LindaOHio (198907)
• United States
25 Aug
Hmmmm. People used to talk about taking a Xerox copy when the machine they used wasn't a Xerox.
1 person likes this
@porwest (106157)
• United States
8h
I remember that being a big thing. So much so that even outside of writer circles, Xerox did a marketing campaign about it.
• St. Clair, Michigan
25 Aug
Q-Tip Ummmmm they’re really all cotton swabs
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@porwest (106157)
• United States
25 Aug
The Q-Tip example is a really good one. I have to admit that I may be guilty of this one personally. lol
@Tendz09 (347)
22h
It’s wild how brand names become the go-to terms for a whole product category. Post-it notes. Even if it’s a sticky note from a different brand, people often call them "Post-its".
1 person likes this
@porwest (106157)
• United States
9h
There are many, many examples. You know a brand has caught on when it happens, even if it doesn't always help the brand itself.
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@RasmaSandra (88368)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
23h
Mostly I think people who always buy their favorite brand names refer to not the products but assume everyone knows what they are talking about like Bounty, Hellmann's, Skippy, and so on,
@Neil43 (4108)
25 Aug
Colgate was treated as a common name and not a brand in the country back then. I don't know now though.
1 person likes this
@porwest (106157)
• United States
25 Aug
I do seem to recall a time when people referred to any toothpaste as Colgate. I haven't heard it recently though.