Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origins 148.
The word origin today is a cup of joe. Okay.
Let's take a look at the note here. If someone wants a cup of joe,
it is an informal and usually humorous way to refer to a cup of coffee.
Yeah. We don't have a lot of funny ways to refer to a cup of coffee,
but this one is slightly funny. If somebody wants to say a cup of coffee in
a slightly different way, I say, yeah. I could really go for a cup of joe. Okay.
So that's what sometimes people may have
wondered. I always wondered that myself. So
why do we say a cup of joe ? What does joe have to do with
coffee ? And we we know Joe as a name. Joe is usually
short for the name Joseph, but why do we say
a cup of joe. Anyway , so that's what we will try to answer in this video.
So let's continue. There are several theories as to the origin of why
we say a cup of joe. One theory is that joe also has the meaning
of a fellow or a guy. Probably because it used to be one of
the most common names and it is still a very common name today.
And a cup of joe was considered one of the most popular drinks
for the common man. So yeah one of the most common drinks of course is coffee.
So this could be one possibility. This is also where we get the idea for the
phrase " an average joe" too. Like an average man. An
average fellow. Remember you, you probably know that
phrase as well. We say an average joe. So it also comes from the idea of another
meaning of joe. Just meaning fellow or guy. Okay let's continue.
Another theory or a second theory is that during world war one, many
soldiers were served instant coffee from the
G. Washington which stands for George Washington
Coffee Refining Company. It was often shortened as GEO
which was which when pronounced sounded a lot like
joe. So they just pronounced the G-E-O which you know, was
the short for George. So I guess people just might have been calling it
joe. for short for George and in that case
they said a cup of joe. Well I guess it's another possibility
that some people think. A third theory and possibly the most
likely one. That's what most people say came from a 1931
military officers , officers manual which referred to a cup of joe or a cup
of jamoke A portmanteau. Remember a portmanteau
that's when you take two words and you combine them together to make a single
word. A portmanteau of java plus
mocha. So you take java , now Java remember that's a place in Indonesia,
but it's very famous for you know, exporting coffee. So it could have been
from that and mocha of course is another type of coffee.
So maybe it was a mixture of java plus mocha. That's what many think.
And was eventually shortened to joe. Okay. Let's continue.
A last theory came from the idea that the Secretary of the u.s
Navy Joseph Daniels and of course again he's short would be Joe for Joseph.
Joseph Daniels outlawed all liquor on navy ships
in 1914 and it made black coffee the strongest drink on the ship. They
claim sailors started to call it a cup of joe
as a protest. All right. So these were all possibilities.
The first known appearance was around 1930.. So that's why some
people think maybe the third one is maybe the most possible, But there are
some others that say it was around before that time too so
it's hard to know for sure. But these are four very possible theories of
why we say a cup of joe. Okay. And we just give one example here.
i need a cup of joe every morning to wake me up. Yeah. So again
like you said it's so it's a more informal sort of humorous way to refer to
a cup of coffee. Anyway, I hope you got it.. I hope you found it interesting.
Again if you like these word origins. You know, help you remember the word .
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