英语词汇know one-s cans的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

know one’s cans. Cowboys on the range in the 19th century were usually starved for reading matter and often read the la- bels on the cook’s tin cans, learning them by heart. A tenderfoot could always be distinguished because he didn’t know his cans. The expression isn’t recorded in the Dictionary of American- isms but is given in Ray Allen Billington’s America’s Frontier Culture (1977). Wrote Edna Ferber in Cimmaron (1930): “The back and the side doors of the dwelling . . . littered with the empty tin cans that mark any new American settlement, and especially one whose drought is relieved by the thirst-quenching coolness of tinned tomatoes and peaches. Perhaps the canned tomato, as much as anything else, made possible the settling of the vast West and Southwest.”

词汇	know one-s cans
词源	know one’s cans. Cowboys on the range in the 19th century were usually starved for reading matter and often read the la- bels on the cook’s tin cans, learning them by heart. A tenderfoot could always be distinguished because he didn’t know his cans. The expression isn’t recorded in the Dictionary of American- isms but is given in Ray Allen Billington’s America’s Frontier Culture (1977). Wrote Edna Ferber in Cimmaron (1930): “The back and the side doors of the dwelling . . . littered with the empty tin cans that mark any new American settlement, and especially one whose drought is relieved by the thirst-quenching coolness of tinned tomatoes and peaches. Perhaps the canned tomato, as much as anything else, made possible the settling of the vast West and Southwest.”
随便看	plain as the nose on your face plain brown wrapper plain sailing planet-struck plankter plankton plant plantain plantation planter-s wart plantocracy plaster of paris platonic love play a hunch play ball play both ends against the middle playboy play-by-play account play catch-up ball play close to the vest play fast and loose play footsie play for fun play for keeps play for the love of it