[Idiom] You get canned more than tuna

[mokbon]

Hello?
-----------------------------------------
MORGAN
Boy, I always saw how stupid you need to be to get fired
from that job. I mean, how hard is it to push a broom around a room.
CHUCKIE
Bitch, you got fired from pushing a broom.
MORGAN
I got fired because management was restructuring.
BILLY
Yeah, restructuring the amount of retards they had workin' for 'em.
MORGAN
Shut up. You get canned more than tuna.
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From Good Will Hunting

Questions
1. Does this mean that canned(got fired from a broom) is inferior to tuna(got fired because management was restructuring)?

2. And is this casual idiom?

 

[BobK]

It's a laboured (and not very apposite) pun on 'canned'. It says nothing about management. It's fairly mindless anyway, saying nothing in particular about anything. It's just an excuse to trot out a silly pun.

The fact that it was used in that context suggests that it may have been idiomatic at the time in Am. Eng...:?:? I've never heard it used in Br. Eng.

b

 

[Barb_D]

Canned is indeed slang for being fired.

You get fired more often than tuna fish is put in a can. It would hardly be a witty thing to say, except that the word "caned" replaced "get fired" to make this bad pun.

 

[Allen165]

Canned is indeed slang for being fired.

You get fired more often than tuna fish is put in a can. It would hardly be a witty thing to say, except that the word "caned" replaced "get fired" to make this bad pun.

Why do you think it's a bad pun? I happen to like it; it's a nice play on words.

 

[5jj]

Why do you think it's a bad pun? I happen to like it; it's a nice play on words.

Q: How do we know which country Jasmin comes from?
A: She finds 'canned' a nice play on words.


That's even worse.

 

[Allen165]

Q: How do we know which country Jasmin comes from?
A: She finds 'canned' a nice play on words.


That's even worse.

It's creative, at least I think it is.

I don't see the link between the pun and the country I'm from.

 

[5jj]

I don't see the link between the pun and the country I'm from.

She finds 'canned' a nice play on words
She finds 'canned' a nice play on words
'canned' a
Canada
:roll:

 

[Allen165]

She finds 'canned' a nice play on words
She finds 'canned' a nice play on words
'canned' a
Canada
:roll:

I guess I'm "slow." In entirely unrelated news, there are some late arrivals at the airport today.

 

[Coolfootluke]

It's creative, at least I think it is.

I don't see the link between the pun and the country I'm from.

I am not a teacher.

Sheesh---Canadians. (It took me a minute, too.)

"Canned more than tuna" ain't Oscar Wilde is all we're sayin'.

 

[Raymott]

"Canned more than tuna" ain't Oscar Wilde is all we're sayin'.

It sure ain't. The pun's not bad, but it would have been better as "You get canned more often than tuna." OK, sometimes I'm hard to please. :-|

PS:
You get fired more often than a New York cop's gun.
You get sacked more often than a pile of potatoes.
You get retrenched more often than a French battlefield.

 

[Barb_D]

Jerry lost his job at the frozen orange juice factory.
Yeah? Why?
He couldn't concentrate.
Oh, so I guess they had to can him.

 

[5jj]

Jerry lost his job at the frozen orange juice factory.
Yeah? Why?
He couldn't concentrate.
Oh, so I guess they had to can him.

And I thought I had plumbed the depths.

 

[BobK]

Why do you think it's a bad pun? I happen to like it; it's a nice play on words.

It strikes me as very lame. 'Canned' is not gradable. Tuna can't be very canned; nothing can be more canned than anything (in that sense of 'more'). The weakness of the pun is an indicator of the intellectual wasteland that the main character lives in.

b