spam (was: "Internet Home" (Have a "ham-cam"?))

[Mark A. Mandel]

Joseph McCollum <prez234 at JUNO.COM> writes:

>>>>>
This has probably come up before, but whence "spam?"

I have heard two different versions:

(1)  The original spam was actually sent out by Spam.  (I find this story
unlikely:
    it doesn't seem that a meat-packing company or even a reseller of
    canned meat would be an early entrant into e-commerce.)

(2)  Spam stands for "s-something p-something advertising message."  OK,
but what are s & p ?
<<<<<

The usual suspect is Monty Python's Flying Circus. A fellow in a restaurant
asks what's available. Most or all of the items on the list that the
waitress recites include Spam, usually ridiculously (of course), and the
conversation keeps getting interrupted by the other patrons (a party of
Vikings) singing in chorus:
     Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam,
     Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam,
     Spam, Spam,   wonderful Spam,
     Spam, Spam,   wonderful Spam.

It's repetitive, voluminous, unasked-for, unwanted, and content-free, and
it drowns out everything else.

Don't ask me where I picked this up; probably prior discussion here, and
probably elsewhere as well.

-- Mark