tape

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bbeeton
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tape

Postby bbeeton » Fri Dec 04, 2020 4:29 pm

A tape, as a noun, is a flat strip. It can be used for, or to describe, many things. ("Duck tape" has already appeared as a good word.)

Some examples of tape are mending tape (which can be of either the sticky variety, or fabric, i.e., seam tape), mag(netic) tape, and recording tape ("miles and miles", with apologies to Flanders and Swann).

From the last, we get the noun used as a modifier -- tape recording, created on a tape deck.

And to round out the possibilities, tape becomes a verb -- to tape a session. (The result is a session tape. Or, for computerese, a backup tape.) Back to sticky tape: tape a reminder to the refrigerator door. Taping is the activity.

Or, returning to the shape, there is the tapeworm.

There are undoubtedly more possibilities.

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Slava
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Re: tape

Postby Slava » Sun Aug 06, 2023 9:24 am

The other verbal possibility: to tape something up, or shut. And taping it up can be closing it, or putting it on a wall.

Etymologically, it appears we don't really know where it comes from.
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