Re: Word of the Year winners

["Steven J. Owens" <puff -at- NETCOM -dot- COM>]

Arthur Comings writes:
> Also, you've been misinformed about
> Spamming, which I'm sure others will tell you.

     Perhaps, perhaps not.  The term has migrated beyond its original
usage and is now popularly used for more generalized purposes. (ahem,
assuming best scholarly voice...):

     The verb "to spam" originated with a classic Monty Python
(British humor) skit in which a restaraunt offered entres like:

     Eggs and Spam
     Spam and Eggs
     Eggs, Spam and Spam
     Spam, Spam, Spam and Eggs
     Spam, Spam, Eggs and Spam
     Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, and Spam

     ...and so forth, unto the seventh generation.

     The verb arose on interactive chat services (IRC and MUDs) and
referred to instances when a user, deliberately, or through error or
through ignorance of proper etiquette, repeatedly sent the same
message many times.  This is analogous to chanting:

     Spam
     Spam
     Spam
     Spam
     Spam
     Spam
     [...]

     This usage became general and eventually was expanded to mean any
rapid sequence of messages that tended to overload the recipients. The
classic example of "spamming the server" (referring to a MUD server, a
program that users telnet to in order to chat interactively) is
dumping /etc/dict (the dictionary file of words used by the standard
spell-checker) into a MUD telnet session.

     Gradually, over the last couple of years, the usage of "to spam"
has expanded and become more general, referring to any behavior that
greatly degrades the "signal to noise" ratio in a medium, including
mailing lists, newsgroups, and interactive chat systems.

     Perhaps this message is a bit off-topic for a technical writer's
mailing list, but I think it may prove educational or useful.

Steven J. Owens
puff -at- netcom -dot- com