For as long as I can remember, a cup of โ€œjoeโ€ has designated a cup of coffee. And not just any coffee. It always had this everyman connotation, a strong cup of black coffee served piping hot, probably old, probably burnt from sitting on a heating element; it’s the coffee of yesteryear. Though once widely used, the etymology of โ€œjoeโ€ remains a relative mystery, but a recent article in Readers Digest offers the leading theories on the termโ€™s origins.

The first theory starts in the U.S. Navy:

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As one legend goes, it all started with Josephus Daniels, the Secretary of the Navy during World War I. In 1914, he banned alcohol consumption on all U.S. Navy ships. Because coffee was the next strongest substitute, American sailors sarcastically deemed it โ€œa cup of Josephus.โ€ The snarky name stuck, although it came to be known as โ€œa cup of Joeโ€ for short.

But according to the article, this origin story is an unlikely one. Referring to a Snopes article on the subject, Readers Digest notes that the term โ€œcup of joeโ€ was coined in 1930, 16 years after the Navyโ€™s prohibition. Given the time gap, ole Josephus is an unlikely muse.

More likely theories include โ€œjoeโ€ being a truncation of โ€œjamokeโ€โ€”a portmanteau of java and mochaโ€”and simply a slang term for โ€œguyโ€ or โ€œfellowโ€ as a means of expressing this is a drink for the common person.

The actual origins of the term โ€œjoeโ€ may never be certain, so we all just need to pick our favorite and run with it.

Zac Cadwaladerย is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas.ย Read more Zac Cadwaladerย on Sprudge.

*top image via Digital Trends

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