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Scotch Tape is a brand name used to describe certain pressure sensitive tape
Pressure sensitive tape

Pressure sensitive tape, PSA tape, Adhesive tape, Self stick tape, Sticky tape consists of a pressure sensitive adhesive coated onto a backing material such as paper, plastic film, cloth, or metal foil....
s manufactured by 3M
3M

3M Company , formerly Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company until 2002, is an United States multinational corporation Conglomerate corporation with a worldwide presence....
 as part of the company's Scotch brand.

The precursor to the current tapes was developed in the 1930s in Minneapolis, Minnesota by Richard Drew
Richard Drew (inventor)

Richard Gurley Drew was an United States inventor who worked for 3M in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he invented masking tape, cellophane tape, and Duct tape....
 to seal a then-new transparent material known as cellophane
Cellophane

Cellophane is a thin, transparent sheet made of regenerated cellulose. Its low permeability to air, oils and Fats, and bacterium makes it useful for food packaging....
. Although it is a trademark
TradeMark

TradeMark is a tall, primarily residential, skyscraper in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was completed in 2007 and has 28 floors. There are 200 hundred residential units....
ed brand name, it is sometimes used in the US and elsewhere as a generic term
Genericized trademark

A genericized trademark is a trademark or brand name that has become the colloquialism or generic description for a general class of Good or Service , rather than the specific meaning intended by the trademark's holder....
 for transparent adhesive tape. The Scotch brand includes many different constructions of tape.

Use of the term "Scotch
Scotch

Scotch is an obsolescent adjective meaning "of Scotland". The modern usage in Scotland is Scottish or Scots, where the word "Scotch" is only applied to specific products, usually food or drink, such as scotch whisky, scotch pie, scotch broth or scotch eggs, and "Scotch" if applied to people is widely considered mildly pejorative....
" in the name has a pejorative
Pejorative

Words and phrases are pejorative if they imply disapproval or contempt. When used as an adjective, pejorative is synonymous with derogatory, derisive, dyslogistic, and contemptuous....
 origin.






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Encyclopedia


Scotch Tape is a brand name used to describe certain pressure sensitive tape
Pressure sensitive tape

Pressure sensitive tape, PSA tape, Adhesive tape, Self stick tape, Sticky tape consists of a pressure sensitive adhesive coated onto a backing material such as paper, plastic film, cloth, or metal foil....
s manufactured by 3M
3M

3M Company , formerly Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company until 2002, is an United States multinational corporation Conglomerate corporation with a worldwide presence....
 as part of the company's Scotch brand.

The precursor to the current tapes was developed in the 1930s in Minneapolis, Minnesota by Richard Drew
Richard Drew (inventor)

Richard Gurley Drew was an United States inventor who worked for 3M in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he invented masking tape, cellophane tape, and Duct tape....
 to seal a then-new transparent material known as cellophane
Cellophane

Cellophane is a thin, transparent sheet made of regenerated cellulose. Its low permeability to air, oils and Fats, and bacterium makes it useful for food packaging....
. Although it is a trademark
TradeMark

TradeMark is a tall, primarily residential, skyscraper in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was completed in 2007 and has 28 floors. There are 200 hundred residential units....
ed brand name, it is sometimes used in the US and elsewhere as a generic term
Genericized trademark

A genericized trademark is a trademark or brand name that has become the colloquialism or generic description for a general class of Good or Service , rather than the specific meaning intended by the trademark's holder....
 for transparent adhesive tape. The Scotch brand includes many different constructions of tape.

Use of the term "Scotch
Scotch

Scotch is an obsolescent adjective meaning "of Scotland". The modern usage in Scotland is Scottish or Scots, where the word "Scotch" is only applied to specific products, usually food or drink, such as scotch whisky, scotch pie, scotch broth or scotch eggs, and "Scotch" if applied to people is widely considered mildly pejorative....
" in the name has a pejorative
Pejorative

Words and phrases are pejorative if they imply disapproval or contempt. When used as an adjective, pejorative is synonymous with derogatory, derisive, dyslogistic, and contemptuous....
 origin. To cut costs 3M applied the adhesive only to the edges of the tape. A remark was made by a St. Paul automobile detailer that the stingy Scotch bosses needed to put more adhesive on it. Scotty McTape, a kilt
Kilt

The kilt is a knee-length garment with pleats at the rear, originating in the traditional dress of men and boys in the Scottish Highlands of the 16th century....
-wearing cartoon
Cartoon

The word cartoon has various meanings, based on several very different forms of visual art and illustration. The term has evolved over time.The original meaning was in fine art, and there cartoon meant a preparatory drawing for a piece of art such as a painting or tapestry....
 boy, was the brand's mascot
Mascot

The term mascot ? defined as a term for any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck ? colloquially includes anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or Brand....
 for two decades, first appearing in 1944. The familiar plaid
Tartan

Tartan is a pattern consisting of criss-crossed horizontal and vertical bands in multiple colours. Tartans originated in woven cloth, now used in many other materials....
 design, a take on the Wallace
Clan Wallace

The Clan Wallace or the Wallace Family originated in the Strathclyde area of the Scottish Lowlands. They are first mentioned in 12th century documents, placing most of the Wallace Family near the city of Glasgow....
 tartan, was introduced in 1945. The Scotch brand and Scotch Tape are registered trademarks of 3M. Besides using "Scotch" as a prefix in its brand names (Scotchgard
Scotchgard

Scotchgard is a 3M brand of products used to protect textile, furniture, and carpets.The original formula for Scotchgard was discovered accidentally in 1952 by 3M chemists Patsy Sherman and Samuel Smith ....
 and Scotchlite
Scotchlite

Scotchlite is a material made by the 3M company that is made of millions of glass beads affixed to the surface. Each glass bead is covered with a metallic reflective layer on half of its surface and this, combined with the spherical nature of the glass beads gives the materials their reflective properties....
), the company also used the name "Scotch" for its (mainly professional) audiovisual magnetic tape products, until the early 1990s when the tapes were branded solely with the 3M logo. In 1996 3M exited the magnetic tape business, selling its assets to Quantegy
Quantegy

Quantegy Recording Solutions is a manufacturer of magnetic tape based in Opelika, Alabama. Their tape products are primarily used in analog audio and video recording studios, but they also have some use with digital data storage devices and instrumentation recorders....
 (which is a spin-off of Ampex
Ampex

Ampex is an United States electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff. The name AMPEX is an acronym, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M....
).

X-rays


In 1953, Russian scientists showed that triboluminescence
Triboluminescence

Triboluminescence is an optical phenomenon in which light is generated when asymmetrical crystal bonds in a material are broken when that material is scratched, crushed, or rubbed....
 caused by peeling a roll of Scotch Tape in a vacuum
Vacuum

A vacuum is a volume of space that is essentially empty of matter, such that its gaseous pressure is much less than atmospheric pressure. The word comes from the Latin term for "empty," but in reality, no volume of space can ever be perfectly empty....
 can produce X-ray
X-ray

X-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 10 to 0.01 nanometers, corresponding to frequency in the range 30 Hertz to 30 Hertz and energies in the range 120 Electron volt to 120 keV....
s. In 2008, American scientists performed an experiment that showed the rays can be strong enough to leave an X-ray image of a finger on photographic paper
Photographic paper

This article is about light-sensitive photographic media; for digital printing media please see Photo printer, photo paper and inkjet paper.Photographic paper is paper coated with light-sensitive chemicals, used for making photographic prints....
.

See also

  • Magic Tape
    Magic tape

    Magic Tape is a brand within the Scotch Tape family of adhesive tapes made by 3M, sold in distinctive plaid packaging.Invented and introduced in 1961, it is the original matte finish tape....
  • Sellotape
    Sellotape

    Sellotape is a European brand of transparent, cellulose-based, pressure sensitive adhesive tape, and is the leading brand of clear sticky tape in the United Kingdom....
     

External links

  • — pages with history information and old commercials featuring Scotty McTape
  • — the official website for the UK
  • — the official website for the USA