Just got this in my e-mail from Byte Back news, and thought it was quite timely for a follow-up to this post.
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SPAM by any other name would smell as meat -- A.J. Axline
(not to be confused with unsolicited commercial e-mail)
A recent news story reports that Hormel Foods, makers of SPAM luncheon meat, has shown good grace in accepting the fact that the name of its product has become the universally accepted term for unsolicited commercial e-mail, or UCE for short.
How did the brand name of a tinned luncheon meat become synonymous with UCE? Some theorists (including Hormel) claim that Monty Python is to blame. A quote from the SPAM Corporate Info web page:
Quote:
"Use of the term "SPAM" 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 UCE was drowning out normal discourse on the Internet."
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Ahh...from such inconsequential beginnings, great universal concepts are born.
Hormel had made some legal overtures to prevent the use of the trademark SPAM from being used as a descriptive term, but has since gracefully acknowledged that things are the way they are. Instead of suing half of the free world like some other twits have (we own the hyperlink! we own the smiley face! we own oxygen! we own sunlight!), all Hormel asks is that people follow
certain guidelines when referring to SPAM luncheon meat in print.
History has seen several trademarks become ordinary words of the English language. Examples include:
Zipper
Escalator
Styrofoam
Trampoline
Kleenex
Kerosene
Nylon
Vaseline
All of the above started as product names, but have become commonly used words in everyday conversation. The main difference between these words and SPAM, is that the above words still refer to the objects they were created to describe. SPAM has become its own double entendre, a brand name that also references a cultural phenomenon.