OT as is this, but IMO, the knickers in a knot that hormel seems to have gotten themselves into, does rather sound like something they really should get over. They'll never be able to control the real world useage of so common a word, one thats been part of the US english vocabulary for something over 60 years IIRC.
Well, this is really off-topic, but the law is that if a company doesn't seek to protect their trademark, then they lose it all together. So Hormel might or might not care one wit about the use of spam to describe unsolicited bulk email, but if they didn't make an *attempt* to protect their trademark (as they are doing--possibly knowing full well that it's hopeless), they would lose the trademark in the food area and other companies could come in and market their own SPAM. (God help us!)
-- Patrick D. McSwiggen pat.mcswiggen@xxxxxxxxxxx Department of Mathematics Office: +1 513 556-4080 University of Cincinnati FAX: +1 513 556-3417
