Can

Can is also gun-collector slang for a silencer, a primarily tubular device that connects easily to a firearm to muffle the sound considerably. Basically turning the sound of a .45 to the sound of a .22 or even more quiet.

When Dean Moriarty bought marijuana, he probably paid $10.00 for a "can" - a one pound coffee can stuffed with stuff.

In the sixties, pot began to be sold by weight, not by volume. In those days, the $10.00 quantity was one ounce. In the parlance, this was usually a lid, but it was sometimes called a "can", in deference to the Beatnik jargon.

The $10.00 per ounce price point persisted for a good many years, and with it, the slang "can" for an ounce.

As inflation eroded the notion of $10/oz. pot, the slang "can" drifted away with it. Now it's as relevant as "tea" or "boo" for marijuana. Times change.

(Perl:)
A method of class UNIVERSAL (which see for notes on availability and use; basically it's available on all objects). $x->can('foo') checks if $x "can" foo, that is whether $x->foo is a legal method call (taking inheritance into account, of course).

can returns the code reference of the method which $x->foo would call, or undef if $x can't (sorry) foo. As such, can is often used for this particular return value, to get a grip on the method's code reference.

Can was also one of the most influential bands of the Krautrock era, a psychedelic, avant-garde-ish, multi-lingual "anarchist community" who have since had a great influence on modern rock and dance music.

They formed in Cologne in 1967 as Inner Space, comprising bassist Holger Czukay and keyboard player Irmin Schmidt (music teachers who had studied under Karlheinz Stockhausen), guitarist Michael Karoli (a pupil of Czukay), and jazz drummer Jaki Liebezeit. By the release of their first album (as "The Can"), the heavily guitar-based Monster Movie (1970), they had enlisted an extremely unstable American vocalist, Malcolm Mooney. His distinctive, anguished vocals added an extra dimension to the already intense music, with its aural distortions and VU-influenced repetition. Particularly disturbing was the 20-minute "Yoo Doo Right", the first of many Can tracks to go well beyond typical song lengths.

Mooney returned to America soon afterwards and was replaced by the more stable Damo Suzuki, a Japanese traveller found busking outside a cafe. The band's next record, now under the name Can, was The Can Soundtracks (1971), in which Suzuki's multi-lingual, often incomprehensible, occasionally meaningless and always idiosyncratic vocals made their first appearance.

The next few years saw them release their most acclaimed works. While their early records were at least Earth-bound, their mid-career albums were quite simply something else. Tago Mago (1972) was an astonishing record, totally bizarre on first listening but with a psychedelic energy that brought back the listener beyond his will. The sound was a world away from either prog-rock or the late 60s garage bands from which they drew inspiration, with melodies and rhythms that suggested nobody had even heard of the rule book. The album was followed by Ege Bamyasi (1972), a more accessible (but still avant-garde) record with a definite funkiness besides the experimentation, as on the catchy "Vitamin C". The acclaimed Future Days (1973) was a comparatively relaxed affair, consisting in places of little more than intriguing background sounds, but also featuring the quasi-pop song "Moonshake".

Suzuki left in 1973 to become a Jehovah's Witness, and the vocals were taken over by Karoli and Schmidt. Can released Soon over Babaluma in 1974 before signing to Virgin the following year. Throughout the albums Landed (1975), Flow Motion (1976), Saw Delight (1977) and Out of Reach (1978), Can moved towards a somewhat more conventional style, and the single "I Want More" from Flow Motion became, in the UK, their only Top 40 record in any country. Meanwhile Holger Czukay, who is now perhaps the best-known ex-member, was being slowly pushed to the fringes of the group's activity and did not appear at all on the album Can (1979). The band quietly disbanded at the end of the 1970s.

Since the split, all the former members have been involved in musical projects; Czukay seems to have had the most success. In 1986 they briefly reformed, with Mooney but without Suzuki, to record Rite Time (released in 1989) and have since been the subject of numerous compilations, live albums and samples. Like the Velvet Underground, their real impact was not commercial success (they had none) but their subsequent influence, not only on rock music but on dance as well.

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Discography

Albums:

• Monster Movie (1970)
• Soundtracks (1971)
• Tago Mago (1972)
• Ege Bamyasi (1972)
• Future Days (1973)
• Soon over Babaluma (1974)
• Landed (1975)
• Flow Motion (1976)
• Saw Delight (1977)
• Out of Reach (1978)
• Can (1979)
• Rite Time (1989)

Singles:

• Kama Sutra (1968)
• Soul Desert (1970)
• Turtles Have Short Legs (1971)
• Spoon (1971, 1973)
• Moonshake (1973)
• Dizzy Dizzy (1974)
• I Want More (1976)
• Silent Night (1976)
• Don't Say No (1977)
• Can-Can (1978)

Important compilations include Limited Edition (1974) and Unlimited Edition (1976) (both consisting of early rarities) and Cannibalism (in three parts released in 1978, 1992 and 1995 respectively).

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References: Rock: The Rough Guide (second edition), Penguin, 1999, and Martin C. Strong's Great Rock Discography (fifth edition), MOJO Books, 2000.

Similar to a Local-area Network (LAN), the Campus-area Network (CAN) can connect network nodes (hosts) that may be located in geographically distinct locations, yet typically do not require remote communications devices between the locations.

Colleges and companies that occupy several buildings in a small area have typical CANs. If you connect several CANs together, they evolve into a Wide-area Network (WAN). The only additions are the remote comm devices.

Camel Book = C = can't happen

can vt.

To abort a job on a time-sharing system. Used esp. when the person doing the deed is an operator, as in "canned from the console". Frequently used in an imperative sense, as in "Can that print job, the LPT just popped a sprocket!" Synonymous with gun. It is said that the ASCII character with mnemonic CAN (0011000) was used as a kill-job character on some early OSes, but this is more likely to be short for `cancel'. Alternatively, this term may derive from mainstream slang `canned' for being laid off or fired.

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, this entry manually entered by rootbeer277.

Can (?),

an obs. form of began, imp. & p. p. of Begin, sometimes used in old poetry. [See Gan.]

With gentle words he can faile gree. Spenser.

 

© Webster 1913.

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Can, n. [OE. & AS. canne; akin to D. Kan, G. Kanne, OHG. channa, Sw. Kanna, Dan. kande.]

1.

A drinking cup; a vessel for holding liquids.

[Shak. ]

Fill the cup and fill can, Have a rouse before the morn. Tennyson.

2.

A vessel or case of tinned iron or of sheet metal, of various forms, but usually cylindrical; as, a can of tomatoes; an oil can; a milk can.

A can may be a cylinder open at the top, as for receiving the sliver from a carding machine, or with a removable cover or stopper, as for holding tea, spices, milk, oysters, etc., or with handle and spout, as for holding oil, or hermetically sealed, in canning meats, fruits, etc. The name is also sometimes given to the small glass or earthenware jar used in canning.

 

© Webster 1913.

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Can (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Canned (?); p. pr. &vb. n. Canning.]

To preserve by putting in sealed cans

[U. S.] "Canned meats"

W. D. Howells.

Canned goods, a general name for fruit, vegetables, meat, or fish, preserved in hermetically sealed cans.

 

© Webster 1913.

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Can (?), v. t. & i. [The transitive use is obsolete.] [imp. Could (#).] [OE. cunnen, cannen (1st sing. pres. I can), to know, know how, be able, AS. cunnan, 1st sing. pres. ic cann or can, pl. cunnon, 1st sing. imp. cu[eth]e (for cun[eth]e); p. p. cu[eth] (for cun[eth]); akin to OS. Kunnan, D. Kunnen, OHG. chunnan, G. konnen, Icel. kunna, Goth. Kunnan, and E. ken to know. The present tense I can (AS. ic cann) was originally a preterit, meaning I have known or Learned, and hence I know, know how. 45. See Ken, Know; cf. Con, Cunning, Uncouth.]

1.

To know; to understand.

[Obs.]

I can rimes of Rodin Hood. Piers Plowman.

I can no Latin, quod she. Piers Plowman.

Let the priest in surplice white, That defunctive music can. Shak.

2.

To be able to do; to have power or influence.

[Obs.]

The will of Him who all things can. Milton.

For what, alas, can these my single arms? Shak.

Maecaenas and Agrippa, who can most with Caesar. Beau. & Fl.

3.

To be able; -- followed by an infinitive without to; as, I can go, but do not wish to.

Syn. -- Can but, Can not but. It is an error to use the former of these phrases where the sens requires the latter. If we say, "I can but perish if I go," "But" means only, and denotes that this is all or the worst that can happen. When the apostle Peter said. "We can not but speak of the things which we have seen and heard." he referred to a moral constraint or necessety which rested upon him and his associates; and the meaning was, We cannot help speaking, We cannot refrain from speaking. This idea of a moral necessity or constraint is of frequent occurrence, and is also expressed in the phrase, "I can not help it." Thus we say. "I can not but hope," "I can not but believe," "I can not but think," "I can not but remark," etc., in cases in which it would be an error to use the phrase can but.

Yet he could not but acknowledge to himself that there was something calculated to impress awe, . . . in the sudden appearances and vanishings . . . of the masque De Quincey.

Tom felt that this was a rebuff for him, and could not but understand it as a left-handed hit at his employer. Dickens.

 

© Webster 1913.