h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Spam can also be said to be an acronym for Serialy Posted Advertising Mail

Or,

Serious Pain (in the) Ass Mail

Its about as wanted as a can of spam is tasty, and as useless as a can of spam is made of things you ought-not-to-be/wouldn't dream of eating.

I've also seen spam described as an acronym of Stupid Person's AdvertiseMent. But of course this may be wrong because acronym can also be an acronym for A Completely Random Order Never Yields Meaning.

I was told many years ago that it meant "SPurious Automatic Mail"...?

(aka SPurious Automated Mailings)

"Solicitating public advertising messages" Theoretically, spam doesn't have to apply to just mail, so messages would probably be a more exact term in most cases.

How about this?: Sending Piles of Annoying Mail

Spam has now it's own account in my system. This way it goes very fast to delete them every day without reading any part of it: saving precious time.
So far my other accounts remained " virgin". No danger to delete good mail accidently. J.W.

> Spam has now it's own account in my system. This way it goes very
>fast to delete them every day without reading any part of it:
>saving precious time.
> So far my other accounts remained " virgin". No danger to delete
> good mail accidently. J.W

That is called the Honeypot method, and it does not last forever! Those "virgin" boxes will get hit, eventually. It helps to give your designated "virgin" accounts funny names that can not be discovered from a dictionary attack, or your own name.