slemslempike: (nemi: argh)
slemslempike ([personal profile] slemslempike) wrote2014-06-30 11:26 am

(no subject)

What are cans? For my entire life up to now (well, from when I first heard the slang, which I'm guessing was either a US sitcom where someone is being amusingly old-timey or on the internet) I have thought that cans were legs, but I read something that suggested that cans were in fact breasts. I cannot google as I am at work. I think I thought legs because you need a good sturdy leg, and cans are very sturdy. You can stand on top of them and they won't break! Cans as breasts would just be weird. Like a robot with bizarrely accurate geometric portions. A cone bra gone wrong.

I am certain I don't have cholera, as apart from a little bottom trouble, which is not abnormal for me even when at home, I feel fine. BUT. The little bottom trouble is something to watch out for. I haven't had anything that might have given me cholera recently, except that I have been rinsing out my mooncup in non-filtered water from the tap, which originally comes from the Nile. Can you get cholera through your vagina? NHS website only says that you get it through eating or drinking fecally-infected items. But you can absorb cocaine through your vagina, so maybe also cholera? I don't think I have cholera. I am just wondering in case I do, you understand.

[identity profile] yiskah.livejournal.com 2014-06-30 08:41 am (UTC)(link)
I think cans are breasts? But a can, singular, can also be a bottom. You're right, it's not a particularly accurate descriptor.

Re:

[identity profile] slemslempike.livejournal.com 2014-06-30 08:50 am (UTC)(link)
I had forgotten about the singular bottom can! Somehow, that makes more sense, though I don't know why. Because you can store things in can, and lots of poeple store fat on their bottoms? Or poo in their bottoms, obviously. Hmm.

Re:

[identity profile] peeeeeeet.livejournal.com 2014-06-30 09:23 am (UTC)(link)
I would concur with this summary of the can situation

[identity profile] peeeeeeet.livejournal.com 2014-06-30 09:24 am (UTC)(link)
Also a can can be a toilet. So you can park your can on the can, regardless of the size of your cans

[identity profile] slemslempike.livejournal.com 2014-06-30 09:27 am (UTC)(link)
I know. And also if someone is filming that (for a specialist website, eprhaps) at the end the can on the can (with optional cans) would be in the can.

[identity profile] yiskah.livejournal.com 2014-06-30 09:33 am (UTC)(link)
ALSO cans are headphones. So the cameraperson filming the can on the can (with optional cans) in order to put it in the can might be WEARING cans.

[identity profile] slemslempike.livejournal.com 2014-06-30 09:38 am (UTC)(link)
THIS IS RIDICULOUS! There are at LEAST (consults OED) 171k words in the English language. Surely more of them than simply can could be employed for slang?

[identity profile] peeeeeeet.livejournal.com 2014-06-30 10:42 am (UTC)(link)
Let's hope nobody involved fancies some tomato soup

[identity profile] yiskah.livejournal.com 2014-06-30 11:11 am (UTC)(link)
Or performing a French vaudeville dance.

[identity profile] bookwormsarah.livejournal.com 2014-06-30 11:16 am (UTC)(link)
Can you get cholera through your vagina?

Considering I spent years believing that if I had a cold I needed to wash my hands carefully before wiping so that my vagina didn't catch a cold, I am probably not the best person to answer this one... I think I mixed up general cold transmissions and cold sores.

[identity profile] slemslempike.livejournal.com 2014-06-30 11:21 am (UTC)(link)
Hee! That is very funny, it would be quit startling to find that your vagina was sneezing.

[identity profile] slemslempike.livejournal.com 2014-06-30 11:23 am (UTC)(link)
In Cannes.

[identity profile] bookwormsarah.livejournal.com 2014-06-30 11:24 am (UTC)(link)
I had a children's book on puberty ("What's Happening to Me?") which described an orgasm as a 'happy sneeze'. This may have added to my confusion.

[identity profile] medland.livejournal.com 2014-06-30 12:47 pm (UTC)(link)
I thought cans were headphones. I am woefully ignorant.

[identity profile] slemslempike.livejournal.com 2014-06-30 12:57 pm (UTC)(link)
Cans is too confusing! Headphones as well.

[identity profile] whatho.livejournal.com 2014-06-30 12:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Cans are headphones. But then I'm very sixties. You do not have cholera.

[identity profile] slemslempike.livejournal.com 2014-06-30 01:12 pm (UTC)(link)
I MIGHT. I mean, I don't, obviously.

[identity profile] katlinel.livejournal.com 2014-06-30 02:46 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, you might have an ano-vaginal fistula in which case infection could go from one to the other. Also I did not know you could absorb cocaine through the vagina. Vaginas are amazing. But I think you would have had to imbibe something laced with cholera to start with. (You don't have cholera or a fistula, btw, obvs.) Bottom trouble is annoying, though, to say the least.

I thought cans were legs too. As are gams, I think (from reading Leslie Charteris' Saint books). Unless those are also breasts? Or other such things.

[identity profile] slemslempike.livejournal.com 2014-06-30 03:13 pm (UTC)(link)
I learnt about vaginal cocaine intake from a friend after I said that I couldn't take up coke because I didn't like things going in my nose. Though I have to say that even once that barrier was lifted I made little effort to do it anyway.

Gams are defintitely legs, aren't they? Glad not to have been the only one who thought cans were legs too!

[identity profile] nineveh-uk.livejournal.com 2014-06-30 05:44 pm (UTC)(link)
I am sure that if you had cholera you would be aware of it fairly rapidly... But while I doubt that you can catch cholera through your vagina, you can be immunized against it that way! http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15753258

[identity profile] girlofprey.livejournal.com 2014-06-30 09:30 pm (UTC)(link)
I think I always assumed cans were buttocks, when I bothered to think about it at all, which would obviously be in the same gaze-range as legs. But I feel like cans being breasts is vaguely familiar too. And gams are definitely legs. I want to know where 'tits' comes from now, is it a genuine reference to birds?

I hope you don't have cholera and your curfew situation is okay, you're in South Sudan omg!

[identity profile] slemslempike.livejournal.com 2014-07-01 05:48 am (UTC)(link)
Is tits rhyming slang? Only I can't get from breasts to tits. Oh! Google suggests it's from "teats" which makes a lot of sense.

Curfew was fine! While I obviously deplore the restriction of freedom of movement, it did mean I got a better night's sleep because there weren't people racing up and down blaring music for half the night.

[identity profile] slemslempike.livejournal.com 2014-07-01 05:50 am (UTC)(link)
I understand almost none of that abstract, but vaginal immunization seems really cool! Hurray for vaginas.

[identity profile] tabouli.livejournal.com 2014-07-01 08:20 am (UTC)(link)
I've definitely read "cans" as slang for breasts, though I can't remember where. I think it's US slang. "Cans" for headphones is definitely English slang.