TIL spam (as refering to online unwanted communication) came from a Monty Python sketch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_(Monty_Python_sketch)

389 points · 51 comments · view on lemmy.world

51 Comments

leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 86 pts · 142d (7 replies)

And now for something completely different, here's the sketch in question.

cornshark@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 142d (6 replies)

If she doesn't want spam why doesn't she order Egg and bacon, or egg, sausage, and bacon, which are the first two menu items?

W98BSoD@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 30 pts · 142d

That’s where it fell apart for you? 🤪

grue@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 142d

Because it wouldn't be as funny that way.

mwproductions@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 142d

Don't cause a fuss.

MummifiedClient5000@feddit.dk · 5 pts · 142d

Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.

Okokimup@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 142d

Cuz that's not got much spam in it.

SippyCup@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 141d

That's part of the joke.

homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 40 pts · 142d

rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works · 38 pts · 143d (5 replies)

LOVELY SPAM... WONDERFUL SPAAAAAM

jestho@lemmy.zip · 20 pts · 143d (3 replies)

I DON'T LIKE SPAM!!

wjrii@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 142d (2 replies)

Well, spam, egg, sausage, and spam – that’s not got much spam in it.

leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 142d (1 reply)

Why can't she have eggs, bacon, Spam and sausage?

pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 142d

Can't have eggs, bacon, Spam and sauage without tbe Spam - it wouldn't be eggs, bacon, Spam and sausage, then!

BorgDrone@feddit.nl · 18 pts · 143d

Bloody vikings!

who@feddit.org · 32 pts · 142d (2 replies)

And the Python programming language was named after that same troupe. :)

dogs0n@sh.itjust.works · -7 pts · 142d (1 reply)

A stain on the monty python reputation, no doubt

SippyCup@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 141d

I mean it's not like it's Cobol. Or Perl! Could you imagine?

corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca · 28 pts · 142d (3 replies)

It's fun to see how people are re-learning history. It's like an eternal September.

MajorasTerribleFate@lemmy.zip · 13 pts · 142d (2 replies)

There's just too fucking much of it, history. There's some pretty important bits, like the Holocaust and how Colombus was a shithead, and occasionally the world's countries get super pissed at each other and have a war about it. But the esoterica of potted meat food product, 70s British comedy troupes, and their collective effect on internet lexicography is a bit much for me. Hell, your "eternal September" wording is probably another such invocation I haven't the memory to recognize.

leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 12 pts · 142d

Back in the old Usenet days, access was mostly limited to dedicated professionals and hobbyists, who had over time developed a certain “netiquette”.

Every September, though, new students got Usenet access, unwittingly disturbing the peace and sowing chaos until they learned the proper way to speak and behave themselves.

Around late 1993 and early 1994, though, ISPs started providing Usenet access to their customers, flooding the network with an unending flow of inexperienced users most of which would never learn the proper ways. An eternal September, as it were. And thus the Internet was ruined.

HubertManne@piefed.social · 1 pts · 142d

there keeps on being more. Oh man I wonder what history classes will be like in a hundred years if they exist.

lime@feddit.nu · 20 pts · 142d (2 replies)

my favourite bit about this sketch is that they start out listing two dishes with no spam in them, which everyone promptly then forgets.

Malfeasant@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 142d

I always noticed that too...

noxypaws@pawb.social · 1 pts · 142d

how has that never occurred to me?? holy shit

ThomasWilliams@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 142d (13 replies)

True story ; In Australia Hormel were ordered to withdraw an advertising campaign featuring the song "Spam - it's real spiced ham !" because Spam is not ham and doesn't contain any spices...

trk@aussie.zone · 7 pts · 142d (12 replies)

Wait, what is Spam then? I thought that was the whole thing... Sp(iced H)am.

I'm going to be disgusted by the answer, aren't I?

hperrin@lemmy.ca · 13 pts · 142d (10 replies)

Pork, ham, and salt, mostly. So it is spiced ham if you consider salt a spice (it’s not).

iMastari@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 142d (3 replies)

When I was young I asked my dad what Spam was made of. He told me “Chicken lips and assholes”. My dad is a funny guy.

islandcoda42@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 142d (1 reply)

Hormel uses only the finest assholes available!

teyrnon@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 142d

That is funny, but not true. They use the most diseased assholes.

HubertManne@piefed.social · 1 pts · 142d

your dad can't tell the difference between spam and hot dogs.

Aqarius@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 142d

...Is the implication here that Americans consider salt a spice, or pork a spice?

quick_snail@feddit.nl · 3 pts · 142d (1 reply)

What's the difference between pork and ham? Aren't they both just pig corpse?

hperrin@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 142d

Ham is a specific cut, and is cured. Pork is any pig meat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ham

teyrnon@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 142d (2 replies)

Legally you need quotation marks, "pork," and "ham," mostly.

hperrin@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 142d (1 reply)

No, it is real pork and real ham. It’s mostly the shoulder cuts, but there’s still real ham in there.

wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 142d

Yeah, I thought it was "Shoulder of Pork and Ham"

teyrnon@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 142d

Spam is an abomination created to short our armed forces of real vittles in World War II, fucking MarArthur that son of a bitch he's in hell now.

Maeve@kbin.earth · 6 pts · 143d (3 replies)

And here I thought it just meant stupid, pointless, annoying message...

Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 142d (1 reply)

Backforming the acronym like whoever named the "Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division"

Yours is better, although it doesn't have the beautiful music of SPAMSPAMSPAMSPAM!

Maeve@kbin.earth · 3 pts · 142d

Idk. I heard it decades ago in icq.

lime@feddit.nu · 2 pts · 142d

don't forget repeated!

Krzd@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 142d (1 reply)
N0MAD@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 142d

Great watch before I make Spam fried rice for dinner. Thank you.

Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 142d

its also a "ham" preserved sodium nitrate juice.

HubertManne@piefed.social · 2 pts · 142d

holy trump. I never made the specific connection.

TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 142d

Well.. sortof

quick_snail@feddit.nl · -1 pts · 142d (1 reply)

Pretty dark to make jokes about such murder and torture

SippyCup@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 141d

Ummm.... Huh?

FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world · -5 pts · 143d

Senseless Pointless Addendum Message.