The phrase “duck tape” goes back way the hell before there was any air conditioning ducts. There was a duck tape story in Invention and Technology magazine twenty odd years ago about the development of the MOISTURE RESISTANT tape for sealing ammunition and other boxes going overseas. IIRC, the story had the contract numbers of the original order to Johnson and Johnson for production. It had absolutely nothing whatever to do with HVAC ; the duct tape name did not come along until the 50s.
That was during World War 2 I should have added.
Thank you.