Why is junk email called spam?
I would like to know why people started calling junk email spam, asks Sarah from Petts Wood. Simon says … What have the Monty Python team ever done for us? The answer is to give us the word we now use for unsolicited junk or bulk email. The canned meat called spam (spiced ham) was immortalised in a famous Monty Python sketch which featured a couple, Mr and Mrs Bun (Eric Idle and Graham Chapman), trying to order in a cafe populated by Vikings. The couple found the menu contained nothing but spam dishes. The word spam actually crops up 86 times during the sketch (compared to the word Bromley, which crops up once!) and the waitress’s outburst of: “You mean spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, and spam?” made the word synonymous with repetition. Perhaps there is no connection between Monty Python fans and computer geeks, but the word spam has since become the common word for junk email or mass emails which are sent out in bulk. From what I can gather, the fir
Apparently, when junk email started to make its bothersome presence felt, the majority of it was posted to newsgroups. As one informed poster states, “This large amount of unwanted crap made normal discussion impossible which reminded people of the Monty Python skit about SPAM. Thus everyone started calling these junk newsgroup mailings as spam.” So the spam drowned out real conversation.
