What does Spam mean?

Tuesday, February sixth, two thousand and seven

I often get a lot of "spam comments" on this blog space these days. They write down just "Nice Site!" or something like that, and leave some links to other web sites on my blog - such as adult web sites. That's sort of a proof that my blog has become more famous than it was. :)

Talking of "spam", the word originally means a trademark of cheap canned meat made mainly from poke. But these days, you know, the word tend to be used to mean annoying advertisements on the Internet - such as "spam emails", "spam comments", and "spam trackbacks". Do you know why the word "spam" is used for the way? I know why, actually.

At one time in the UK, BBC broadcasted an comedy TV program, which is called "Monty Python's Flying Circus". In one scene of the comedy TV program, when a married couple went into a restaurant, they heard another customer was shouting out "Spam! Spam! Spam!" over and over again. So they couldn't help but order some dishes with "Spam meat", although it's few and far between for them to have "Spam meat". That sounds like a subliminal effect, doesn't it? :)　So, the customer's shouting was kind of an attack to make them wants to try "Spam dishes", even though they don't want to have the menu that much. That's why tons of annoying emails are called "spam emails" as far as I researched.

Hope you understand what I mean...

Anyway, I came up with the idea of this article thanks to a nice lady and a number of spam comments. I appreciate you giving me this idea, Ms. M.


at one time: かつて
over and over again: 何度も
few and far between: めったにない、とても稀な (=rare?)
subliminal effect: サブリミナル効果