Spam marks double figures
Published: 13 Apr 2004 10:35 BST
'Spam spam spam' Analysts said the Canter & Siegel anniversary comes with some caveats -- there was spam before 12 April, 1994, even if it wasn't called that yet.
The term spam itself originally came into being in 1937, when Kenneth Daigneau won $100 for coming up with the name to replace Hormel Foods' canned meat-based product, then known as Hormel Spiced Ham.
Thirty-three years later, the British comedy group Monty Python got its hands on Spam. In an episode of the troupe's Flying Circus television show that aired 15 December, 1970, Monty Python performed a sketch in which a waitress at the Green Midget Cafe recites dish after dish featuring copious amounts of the canned meat, accompanied by a Wagnerian chorus of Vikings who drown out the restaurant patron, who protests that she does not want any.
On 3 May, 1978, a Digital Equipment marketer named Gary Thuerk sent over the Arpanet -- the Internet's academic, military and strictly noncommercial predecessor -- an unsolicited email that advertised the company's support of the Arpanet protocol in its products.
But it wasn't until the 1980s that users of the multiuser dungeon, or MUD, network environment made reference to the Monty Python skit by using the term spam to describe the posting of overly large text files.
According to Jonathan Spira, chief executive of Basex, it wasn't until 10 years ago that the Canter & Siegel email inspired the use of "spam" to describe unsolicited commercial messages.
Hormel says that despite early moves in defence of its trademark, it has given spam up to the email vernacular.
And while the company claims to have a sense of humour about its much-pilloried product, the 2-year-old, 16,000 square foot Spam Museum has no reference to junk email.
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