SPAM - noun, [food] lunch meat, trade name of product

see also

Spam - noun - [unsolicited email message] often commercial, messages transmitted through the Internet as a mass mailing to a large number of recipients

There are quite a few humorous, and a few very serious dissertations on the origins of the word "spam" as we know it today. Anyone of my generation will tell you it is, in fact, canned lunch meat.

Any internet user, though, is familiar with a far different meaning, as well as the terms, "spam" - unwanted bulk emails, usually advertising; "spammer" - someone who sends out bulk mailings, even well-intentioned ones like a friend of mine who just can't resist a sentimental e-chain letter; "spamming" - the act of sending out those annoying pieces of unwanted junk mail that clog our in-boxes and make sifting through the day's mail a grinding chore.

...but are the meanings, in fact, so far apart, and how did we get from lunch meat to email - that is the question...

In 1937, Hormel Foods was looking for a distinctive and memorable name for their Spiced Ham. Kenneth Daigneau, a Broadway actor and, just by happenstance, brother to a Hormel executive, was the winner of the first prize in the contest - $100. His winning name for the product was SPAM, and the rest is history.

SPAM became part of the North American popular culture. Due to the difficulty of sending fresh meat to front-line troops during World War II, Spam was heavily used as a fresh meat substitute. Not all were fans of the canned meat which was provided in abundant quantities.

It may have been a boon for the advertisers as well as for Hormel, but providing their product in bulk, not a targeted offering to those who actually liked the lunch meat, did not do them any favors with the troops as a whole.

Spam was on the menu for every meal - breakfast, lunch, and dinner - and jokes about it were rife. Some of the troops grew downright anti-spam, and made no attempt to conceal their dislike for the ubiquitous "mystery meat" as some dubbed it.

Spam soon became a trade item, bartered for souvenirs, favors, and local delicacies. Front-line troops became quite adept at getting rid of spam, particularly their excess, unwanted spam, and surpluses of the canned meat began to make its way into the native diets. Spam infiltration into the residents’ diet has had a peculiarly lasting effect in the Pacific Islands. There, as opposed to many on the mainland who consider Spam to be "poor folk's meat", the canned meat is viewed by some as a delicacy, and cookbooks for its use abound.

The product was heavily promoted in the continental U.S. as well. One of the ad campaigns featured the now-iconic greats George Burns and Gracie Allen.

With the advent of the Internet, some decades later, a new language was forming. The new lexicon, largely derived from the slang of early bulletin board and chat users gradually mingled and spread, creating a user-jargon that we now take for granted.

Some have suggested that the term S.P.A.M. is actually an acronym for Simultaneous Posting and Mailing, or Send Phenomenal Amounts of Mail. I agree with most Internet etymologists who credit a 1970s Monty Python sketch with the unlikely marriage of meanings.

Monty Python’s comedy was becoming more wide spread, but still its following was still more cult-like in North America. By the late 1980's, the comedy of the Monty Python troupe was firmly entrenched in a devoted fan base that included many a techno-nerd, and frequenter of late night chat “dungeons” as they were then called. Python sketches were not merely watched, they were memorized, shared with friends, chatted about in the emerging on-line community.

These budding on-line communities were, at the same time, rife with technical anomalies. Some of them had names like "stack dumps", and could have mysteriously disastrous consequences, but others were guaranteed conversation stoppers in which a flood of data would be sent, sometimes deliberately, but more often, completely by accident. The end result was the same regardless – shutting down the conversation. The poetic leap was just waiting to be made from the Nordic incantations blotting out the conversation in the Spam sketch to any number of chat-network anomalies.

Soon the inadvertent flooding gave way to deliberate mass postings caused by new, inexperienced users trying to contact their whole group of friends at once. Unfortunately, marketers were quick to realize they could capitalize on these anomalies, and followed the incompetent users with their own floods of broadcast advertisements.

It is difficult to say exactly when the term Spam was first applied to these conversation stoppers that have become the bane of the email Inbox. By the early 90s though, the term appeared to be firmly established.

For whatever it's worth, I don't mind Spam, the lunch meat, though I find it a bit salty, and Spam really is a fun word to say. Go ahead - give it a try.

"Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam..." There - see? It's a funny word, for all its modern connotations.

It is perhaps, the funniest thing about the whole Spam Sketch. My personal favorite from the Monty Python bunch has always been the Parrot Sketch, or perhaps the Ministry of Silly Walks, and Olympic Hide-And-Go-Seek is right up there, too.

Enjoy...