Spam

[RSteve]

I had a fried Spam and egg sandwich for breakfast this morning. I had pickle slices, raw onion, and mayo between the layers of spam and egg. It was really good.
Makes me wonder how the word, Spam became synonymous with unsolicited garbage email.
(Thinking about a similar delight for lunch.)

 

[kxg]

From Wikipedia: The term spam is derived from the 1970 "Spam" sketch of the BBC television comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus. The sketch, set in a cafe, has a waitress reading out a menu where every item but one includes Spam canned luncheon meat.
So, there it is.

 

[RSteve]

From Wikipedia: The term spam is derived from the 1970 "Spam" sketch of the BBC television comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus.

But how did it become attached to email?

 

[kxg]

From a commercial site pushing an anti-spam product comes this:

Here are two popular theories:

1. A Digital Equipment Corporation employee was the first spam sender
2. The first deliberate marketing spam occurred on Usenet

Though both these cases contributed to the modern use of the word spam, we may conclude that whoever termed the bombarding of a large number of recipients with one message as spam was an ardent fan of the Monty Python show.

The explanation remains tenuous, but there it is.