Grammar

Can or Canned?

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If you’re talking about food found along a typical grocery store aisle, should the word preceding the goods be can or canned?

There’s a certain grocery store that I frequent that has a serious grammatical problem in its signage.

I know exactly where this signage is: I can take you straight to it. It’s at the end of the aisle where you’ll find foods like corn and beans, not the fresh variety but rather the kind packaged in metal cylinders known as cans.

The sign in question reads, “Can Vegetables.” The typeface used for these little signs is wide enough that they couldn’t fit another letter on that particular sign, so I’ll at least acknowledge that point. I won’t give them credit, however, for not simply having rephrased it as “Canned Goods.”

Every time I see “can vegetables,”&nbsp the grammar snark in the back of my head asks, “Can vegetables what?” I don’t say it out loud, mind you, but I say it in my head. I can’t help it.

Can is, in this meaning, a noun meaning the container. Canned is an adjective that modifies what has been sealed into the container. Peas inside a can are canned peas, not “can peas.”

The process of canning allows food to be preserved for between one to five years. In some cases, the food is technically safe to eat for much longer than that, however it may not be the most appealing looking dish you could imagine.

There’s the story of the steamboat Bertrand, which sank to the bottom of the Missouri River in 1865. More than a century later, in 1968, canned food items were retrieved from the shipwreck. Chemists at the National Food Processors Association analyzed the contents of the canned goods in 1974, and found that “although the food had lost its fresh smell and appearance,” no microbial growth was detected and the foods were deemed safe to eat.

Would you have sampled 109-year-old canned goods?

the authorPatrick
Patrick is a Christian with more than 30 years experience in professional writing, producing and marketing. His professional background also includes social media, reporting for broadcast television and the web, directing, videography and photography. He enjoys getting to know people over coffee and spending time with his dog.