Nobody's that stupid...?

[ffutures]

I was just out getting a sandwich for lunch and overheard a snatch of conversation from one of the cafe tables that sounded truly bizarre:

"Of course the real reason the US is phasing out tin cans is that the chemical name sounds like 'satanic'"

I think that the guy who said this was one of three men, all in their thirties-forties and fairly smartly dressed. Wouldn't amaze me if they were advertising people, there are some agencies in the area.

I just did a web search and can't find anything that looks like this sort of nonsense, but the chemical name for many tin compounds does begin "stannic" and that isn't far off being an anagram if you are deeply stupid. Anyone know anything about this?

Comments

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Yes, the cost thing had crossed my mind too. Plus aluminium is recyclable etc., and the production process is much simple. I know all that, nevertheless I did vaguely wonder if there was a rumour about the satanic thing too.

[parakkum.livejournal.com]

I haven't encountered such a rumor, and I'd tend to discount it because it would require Americans associating tin with the word "stannic" (which we don't, by and large, unless we are chemists).

It has the structure of a good urban legend. The word is close enough to make it phonetically plausible, and it fits a worldwide image of us as a bunch of ignorant overly religious types (it just makes the mistake of not realizing that ignorant folks don't know the old common names of chemicals...). So possibility + message = urban legend. :)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Sounds plausible.