spam

1. n. Bulk mail from a stranger v. sending unsolicited commercial email to people you don't know 2. n. a canned precooked "meat product" from Hormel Foods. "Classic Spam" consists of "pork shoulder meat with ham meat added," salt, water, sugar and sodium nitrite. The product has become part of many jokes and urban legends about mystery meat, which has made it part of pop culture and folklore. Use of the term "spam" for unwanted email was adopted as a result of the Monty Python skit in which a group of Vikings sang a chorus of "spam, spam, spam . . . " in an increasing crescendo, drowning out other conversation. Hence, the analogy applied because such bulk mail can drown out normal discourse on the Internet.