In my years as an English teacher, I have seen a wide range of teaching styles. This has to be one of the strangest. What do you think? Maybe you could ask your teacher to incorporate these methods into some of your lessons…

Spam. We all deal with this curse on a daily basis. But why is it called „spam“?

The original Spam is a precooked and canned pork product produced by the Hormel Foods Corporation. Due to the difficulties of delivering fresh meat to troops on the front line, there was an explosion in Spam consumption during World War Two, with US soldiers eating it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Its popularity in the US and UK continued during the post-war years, thanks to its low cost. Only a small circle of former Hormel Foods executives know the true meaning of the name Spam, but popular belief sees it as an abbreviation for „special processed American meat“, „shoulders of pork and ham“ or maybe „spiced ham“.

But that still doesn’t connect the word „spam“ to the unwanted emails that clog our inboxes everyday. For this link, we need to turn to the British comedy institution Monty Python. Their 1970 cult-sketch „Spam“ sees two customers in a cafe trying to order breakfast, only to find that every dish includes unwanted Spam. Many years later, the practice by marketers of filling email inboxes with repeated and unwanted advertising emails became known as „spamming“. And the spam email was born.

WARNING! – British humour ahead