'Spam' linked to Monty Python skit
Los Angeles Times
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| Monty Python comics Terry Jones, Terry Gillam, John Cleese and Michael Palin unwittingly gave a name to the unsolicited e-mail ads now called spam.
Associated Press library photo • 1999 |
"Have you got anything without Spam?" asks a despairing customer.
"Well, there's Spam, egg, sausage and Spam," the waitress says. "That's not got much Spam in it."
In the background, a group of Vikings keeps breaking into song, repeating the word "Spam" over and over.
According to Net entrepreneur Brad Templeton's research, the word was first used by programmers to mean flooding a chat room or computer with so much data as to cause it to crash. Spontaneously and almost immediately, it was applied to the new mass advertisements that were sent over and over.
