12 Films. 12 Weeks. There are worse ways to spend a summer.

Film Jargon Primer: “Cans”

When soundman Kevin Adams told me I had “great cans,” I thanked him but confessed I hadn’t been to the gym in weeks. When I turned to him, fluttering my lashes over my raised shoulder, he was not even looking at me.

Turns out he was ogling my Sennheiser HD-280′s.

“Cans” is a British term for headphones that has been incorporated in audio industry professional slang. GoodCans.com specializes in “higher quality headphones” (my HD-280′s not listed – YET) and it seems “Desperate Dans” are cockney rhyming slang for “cans,” (though 28 people think that’s rubbish).

A little GoogleBooks search brought me to, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, which states:

Cans: Earphones used by operators and technicians of radio and TV: Can.  since ca. 1950; Brit. perhaps a littler later: s. > j. (Leechman; P.B.)

I’m wondering if this has any connection to the tin can phones held together with string. Anyone who was alive in the 50′s have any thoughts on the matter?

This cartoonist needs a second joke.

Until some baby boomers get back to me, that will remain a mystery.

Posted by curious Mike (or is that “bi-curious Mike“? Only Kevin Adams knows for sure…)