Quote - I had a customer who demanded that we change the French word "tampon" to "buffer" in her documents, and it did no good to point out that in French, Kotex is not a "tampon," which is a French word for a kind of paper, borrowed by the French computer industry to avoid having to use the Anglo-Saxon word "buffer" (and the French hate borrowing from English, as their computer vocabulary will tell you). Of course, it was also borrowed from French (tampon, that is) by Americans to give "rag" some panache. And "rag," which used to be the literal word for "tampons," became insulting.

It is also a variant (usually American, and not in current use) for "tampion", the technical term for a plug or cover used on a cannon or gun muzzle to protect it from debris and weather.