Learn English – Abbreviations for nouns / noun phrases used as non-nouns

This is, I learn, called conversion in lingustics:

also called zero derivation, is a kind of word formation; specifically, it is the creation of a word from an existing word without any change in form

making a verb out of a noun:

Verbification, or verbing, is the creation of a verb from a noun, adjective or other word.

In English, verbification typically involves simple conversion of a non-verb to a verb. The verbs to verbify and to verb are themselves products of verbification (see autological word), and—as might be guessed—the term to verb is often used more specifically, to refer only to verbification that does not involve a change in form. (Verbing in this specific sense is therefore a kind of anthimeria.)

Examples in English number in thousands and this is a very potent source of neologisms, due to the fact that newly coined words take a well defined meaning from the noun. It is typically used when there is no ambiguity (compare to tape with to glass; while tape is an object with clear dominant use, glass is not so it is not so effective).

Of course, prescriptivists oppose it on principle, but also others oppose it when it is not done 'in the spirit' of the language, for example the following quote from Bill Waterson's:

Calvin: Verbing weirds language.

is perfectly understandable, but it sounds very strange.

In cases where it does not weird it - it is easily accepted. In your example, the way the noun 'tape' was verbed into verb 'tape' provides an established path for "duct tape" to follow.

Theoretically, any, absolutely any noun — and indeed any, absolutely any word — in English can be used as a verb. Nothing prevents you from exampling, betweening, egadsing or greating. Theoretically.

In practice, there are of course a variety of reasons why not everything gets verbified. For starters, there are only so many words you really need in everyday conversation. You don't use example as a verb, but you also don't use amaranthine as an adjective. For all you know, both are sitting in a dictionary somewhere, but for all you care, both might as well not exist.

Secondly, there is that linguistic phenomenon called "blocking". We already have the word "to compute", so its existence blocks the verb "to computer" from getting any traction, or indeed from being created in the first place. If it is to be introduced and get any traction, then only in a meaning different from that of "to compute". The difference can be very slight; it can also be one of register or dialect rather than one of meaning, but it will be a difference nonetheless.

Likewise, there is no way to tell what "he examples" might end up meaning should it ever get introduced, but it's likely to be something entirely different from "he demonstrates", or "he leads by example", because we already have other words for those which everybody uses.