Film Jargon Primer: “Cans” « 12 Films. 12 Weeks. There are worse ways to spend a summer.

Film Jargon Primer: “Cans”

July 12, 2009 at 12:57 am | In Mike Lavoie | Leave a Comment
Tags: cans, cockney rhyming slang, hooters, phones

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?