There's a name given to junk email that is the same as a pork luncheon
meat product produced by Hormel. I don't think the Hormel company is
too pleased about their product associated with something negative and
undesirable, but the usage has become widespread.
I was wondering if this word association has helped or hindered sales
of the food product.
The meat product has been around for years. It was given to troops
during WW II. Complaints then arose about it, but they were NOT about
the quality or taste of the product, which was fine. The problem was
that the troops in the field were given that as meal three times a
day, seven days a week and they got sick of the monotony. The
Quartermaster Corps attempted to provide a variety of tasty food for
front line troops, but was constrained by (1) shipping and preserving
food from the U.S. to Europe and the Pacific, 2) shipping food from
foreign ports to the front line, 3) preparing food in combat
conditions to serve mobile troops. The official history (the Army
"green series" books) goes into interesting candid detail on their
logistical challenges and their efforts to overcome them**. (They
freely admitted that their "powdered lemon drink" proved more useful
as a floor cleaner than tasty beverage.)
Getting back to words and communication, it is interesting how the word
"pig" is so contradictory. As I understand it, the pig is actually a
nice animal and some people have them as pets. But we have so many
negative "pig" usages -- a nasty term for cops, sloppy eating,
greediness, an overly aggressive man, rude behavior etc. Yet pig
meats -- processed luncheon meats*, pork, ham, bacon, scrapple*, etc.,
are very popular foods.
(*balogna, salami, hot dogs, sausage, liverwurst, etc. Scrapple is a
popular Philadelphia food made from scraps.)
(**The combat cooks used mobile gasoline stoves, but the stoves
required unleaded gas otherwise the burners would clog up from the
lead. The army stocked leaded gas for vehicles, carrying a separate
fuel was another burden. As an aside, apparently gasoline fired
stoves and heaters were popular at one time, but no longer. Anyone
know why? Gasoline too flammable? Why didn't they use safer kerosene
back then?)
Public replies, please.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I sometimes give scraps to my cats to
eat, although I am sort of particular about which kind and how much.
They are better off with genuine cat food rather than left-over human
food.
Regards the use of the term 'spam' for unwanted email, my impression
has always been that Hormel treats it like a joke. Consider for
example various television commercials for Spam (the meat product) in
recent months: _they are quite funny_, IMO. In one, a family is
sitting down to dinner and they have a guest. The guest comments on
the delicious quality of the food she is being served, and asks the
cook about the recipe. The cook enumerates the various ingredients,
and then says "I put a lot of sliced up Spam in it also." As he says
the word 'Spam' the camera closes in on his face and mouth as he
deliberatly and willfully pronounces the word. The guest tell the cook
it was really good, and looking at the serving dish she exclaims, "I
wish there were more, I would have another serving, but it is all
gone." Her face has a frown. "Oh, no," says the cook, "there is a lot
more, we always have plenty of Spam." The cooks snaps his fingers and
says, "More Spam, please", (again we see his mouth up close,
deliberatly pronoucing the word) and a huge, semi-tailer truck full
of little cans of Spam drives through, and dumps its huge load all
over the family computer which is sitting nearby.
In the second Hormel advertisement, some guy is sitting at his
computer doing some work. Something bad has happened because we see
him turn around and face the camera with an angry look on his face; up
close we see his contorted mouth as he yells, "more spam!" and angrily
tries to erase it all. When he says 'more spam' the same semi-trailer
truck backs up and dumps its load of Spam cans all over the computer,
burying the machine totally under the cans. In both commercials, as
the truck dumps its load, one of the little cans of Spam flips over
upright so its label is upright, and the word 'Spam' fills the screen
then another image saying 'a product of Hormel Meat Company; find it
at your grocers.' PAT]
Path: telecom-digest.org!ptownson
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2005 13:11:20 UTC
From: wollman@khavrinen.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Broadband Competition Must Surely be Working
Message-ID: <telecom24.385.8@telecom-digest.org>
Organization: MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Sender: editor@telecom-digest.org
X-URL: http://telecom-digest.org/
X-Submissions-To: editor@telecom-digest.org
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@telecom-digest.org
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 24, Issue 385, Message 8 of 14
Lines: 28
In article <telecom24.384.6@telecom-digest.org>,
<hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
> So, if a telecom provider wants to bundle services, why shouldn't it?
Because the market for residential communications services cannot
support what economists call "effective competition". The barriers to
entry in "local loop" services are so high that allowing bundling
stifles competition on the services built on top.
What should have been done back in 1984, and wasn't, is the unbundling
of outside plant from telephone service (with both by preference
provided by separate companies). By the late 1990s, most states
understood this, and implemented a similar model for energy
deregulation: you buy your energy from a competitive supplier, who
then must contract with a regulated distribution company to deliver it
to you.
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | As the Constitution endures, persons in every
wollman@csail.mit.edu | generation can invoke its principles in their own
Opinions not those | search for greater freedom.
of MIT or CSAIL. | - A. Kennedy, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003)
