Why is spam called spam?

mickledore

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Not the processed tinned meat that was left over from the war. That stood for "Shoulder pork and ham". Terrible stuff until you fried it.

But the spam that fills up our inboxes and this forum as well. Why is it called spam? Just curious!
 
I think it originated from Monty Python.
 
I thought the answer was in your question....

Not the processed tinned meat that was left over from the war. That stood for "Shoulder pork and ham". Terrible stuff until you fried it.
!
 
Not the processed tinned meat that was left over from the war. That stood for "Shoulder pork and ham". Terrible stuff until you fried it.

But the spam that fills up our inboxes and this forum as well. Why is it called spam? Just curious!

Or SPiced hAM depending on who you believe :lol:
 
Well I liked it fried. When I were a lad it were a real treat.ade a change from tripe, oxtail or cow heel!

I remember very well the Monty Python sketch. Saw it first time round and thought it hilarious. Can't quite see the connection but who did understand the Pythons.
 
Most people have some vague awareness that it came from at first from the spam skit by Monty Python's Flying Circus. In the sketch, a restaurant serves all its food with lots of spam, and the waitress repeats the word several times in describing how much spam is in the items. When she does this, a group of Vikings (don't ask) in the corner start a song:

"Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, lovely spam! Wonderful spam!"

Thus the meaning of the term at least: something that keeps repeating and repeating to great annoyance.
 
I've never had tea made from horse crap. Do you strain it through your vest to remove the floaters?
 
Tripe, oxtail or cow heel! You were lucky we had to collect horse crap from road for our tea.
Well of course we had it tough. Horse crap from the road would have been a luxury to us. We had to eat half a handful of anthrax for breakfast once a week.
 
Breakfast. You nonces. We never had breakfast. It were straight down 't pits for us every morning. And all we had to eat were a slice of bread and dripping once a week. Not much dripping either.
 
Going down t'pits would have been like a palace to us. We had to go to work in Earths core for thruppence ha'penny every 2 millennia and we we got home our legal guardians would put us through a mincer.
 
Serially Produced Automated Mail
 
Society for the Preservation of Amplitude Modulation
 
Or is it Terri Jones who's in lady drag??? ;)
 
No. That's Graham Chapman. He's now dead.

For those of tender years..

Terry Jones was behind the counter
Eric Idle and Graham Chapman (in lady drag) were lowered onto the chairs
John Cleese was impersonating Renee Magritte
Michael Palin was the historian
 
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I remember it as Spam from long before Wikipedia and even back then it was commonly 'known' to have come from the Monty Python sketch - I seem to recall reading a magazine article from some of the early antivirus software developers who said they called it Spam and it just stuck.
 
Wasn't Monty Python a long long time before software started being worked on? And it's British humour which doesn't go down well over there. Monty Python didn't always go down well over here. My parents thought it was a load of ****. The golden glow about the Pythons these days is largely because the kids who understood it then are now mums and dads themselves and can't understand modern "comedy" so look back with rose tinted specs. Some of the Python stuff was terrible, but we forget that!
 
The golden glow about the Pythons these days is largely because the kids who understood it then are now mums and dads themselves and can't understand modern "comedy" so look back with rose tinted specs. Some of the Python stuff was terrible, but we forget that!
Spot on :thumbs:
 
Python were huge in America and exactly the kind of thing computer geeks would appreciate...
 
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