Skip to main content

Cup of Joe

 

There's a few ideas about the origin of this popular phrase for coffee. One has to do with the man shown above, Josephus Daniels, who was Secretary of the Navy. On the month of June, 1914, he banned all U.S. Navy ships from serving alcoholic beverages. The sailors weren't too thrilled with the decision, because they had to resort to the next strongest drink on the list, which was coffee!

 Since Josephus Daniels was the one responsible for banning alcohol and "forced" everyone to make the switch to coffee, the sailors nicknamed the drink after him, thus it became "a cup of joe," Joe being short for Josephus. That's the theory anyways.

Another theory has to do with the soldier but doesn't involve Secretary of State Daniels.

 

In case you don't know, or haven't figured it out by now, a cup of joe is the nickname for a cup of coffee. 








Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Butter someone up

There are two probable origins for this idiom and I think both are equally plausible. The first one is that when you spread butter on bread you are buttering it up like one would do when trying to flatter someone. The second is in ancient India there was a practice of throwing balls of butter at statues to ask for favor, i.e. buttering them up. ( source ) When we use the phrase today we generally mean that extreme flattery is used to gain information or favor. It's not always necessarily a compliment. 
Post a Comment
Read more

Call it a Day

The literal use of this phrase hails from 1838 when the phrase originally was "call it half a day" to mean leaving work early. (source) The modern use of the phrase is to indicate ending something due to false sense of accomplishment. 
Post a Comment
Read more

More bang for your buck

This phrase was used a lot in 1953 but an earlier citation puts it at 1940 in a Metals and Plastics Publications advertisement. Read about it here . The phrase means you get more for your money.
Post a Comment
Read more