Unemployment lingo (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 12:14 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> FWIW, when I waas in the Arny fifty years ago, any trashcan that
> wasn't used for the disposal of left-over food - a "garbage can" - was
> called a "shitcan." Throwing something away was referred to as
> "shitcanning" it.
>
> I've always felt that "can" in the sense of "fire" - I got *canned* -
> was a clip of "shitcan," unless it was based on the old, sadistic,
> children's game of tying a can to a dog's tail, still not unheard of
> as recently as the war years, i.e., during WWII, for you younger folk.

Cassell's supposes this sense of "can" (v.) is derived from "toss out on one's
can," and "shitcan" (v.) is an intensified form thereof.


--Ben Zimmer

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