"can gave" doesn't make sense in English.

You're parsing it wrong.

It's not "garbage + can gave off" it's "garbage can + gave off".

I think the tag can be removed.

I agree with localharrylover. I first read it as "can gave." To avoid the ambiguity it might be advisable to insert another word to break it up.

The garbage can sure gave off a bad smell.

It wouldn't be necessary to do this in spoken English as vocal inflection would make it clear that the word "can" was attached to the word "garbage" and not "gave."

Re: The garbage can gave off a bad smell.

Another way to handle this would be to use a hyphen, since one of the functions of a hyphen is to clear up ambiguity.

Change it to: "The garbage-can gave off a bad smell."

This way the reader instantly recognizes that the subject is a "garbage can" and not "garbage," and that "can" is definitely not an auxiliary verb.

@Delian "can gave" is not a possibility in English, so there is no ambiguity. I'm adopting the sentence as it stands.

Please remove @needs native check

@Dejo,

I apologize if I was not clear enough in what I was trying to communicate to you. You are quite correct in saying that there is no *grammatical* ambiguity. Of course, "can gave" is not a grammatical possibility in English. :)

However, your statement that there is no ambiguity is mistaken. The ambiguity lies in semantic perception. I'm assuming you don't want readers to be confused by your sentence. Do you?

A reader looking at your sentence for the first time sees:

The - definite article, goes with a noun...

The garbage - Aha! The noun. Okay, so "the garbage" is the subject of your sentence. Now, what *about* the garbage? Looking for a verb...

The garbage can - Aha! The verb "to can/to be able to" The garbage can do what? Garbage doesn't really do much, though. Maybe it's "can" as an auxiliary verb. The reader is in suspense waiting for the main verb...

The garbage can gave - What? What just happened? "Can gave?" Surely that's wrong.

Looking at the rest of the sentence for clues gives us
...off a bad smell. - Well, garbage does indeed give off a bad smell. No help there.

The reader has to go back to the start and read it through a few times before finally figuring out that "The garbage" wasn't the subject. "The garbage can" was the subject. That makes "gave" the verb.

A garbage-can full of garbage can give off a bad smell, just like garbage that's not in a can. Parsed that way, it makes perfect sense, but a reader has to puzzle it out with effort.

If you would rather not confuse your readers, then adding a hyphen so it reads "The garbage-can" would make the subject clear on first view.

The ambiguity is not grammatical, but semantic, and very real. One of the uses of a hyphen is to resolve such ambiguity. :)

It's your sentence. It's your choice. Hope that helps.

@Delian. I added the hyphen as requested ,but

<. I'm assuming you don't want readers to be confused by your sentence. Do you?>
No I don't want them to be confused, but it might be useful to teach the reader to suspend judgement. If anyone has a problem with a short English sentence I would hate to think how they would do with a foreign language like German.:)

The confusion wouldn't arise in Australia as we don't call it a "garbage can". We would say "The garbage bin gave off a bad smell."

Having said that, I do not think that the original sentence (without hyphen) was confusing, mainly because "can gave" cannot be mistaken for a verb as it is ungrammatical.