One of my Grandsons brought me my coffee cup with the comment that he thought I might want a “cup of Joe,” which made me wonder where the expression originated. There are several explanations that attribute the expression as a reference to Joseph Daniels, who was appointed Secretary of the Navy in 1913 by President Woodrow Wilson. The legend says that he abolished the officer’s wine mess, which left coffee, or “cup of Joe,” as the strongest drink allowed on Navy ships. Both Answer Bag and Snopes declare this explanation to be false, based on the fact the expression doesn’t appear in print until almost three decades after the banning of wine. Another more plausible explanation is that “Joe” was a frequently used name for the common man, and soldiers (GI Joe), drank considerable amounts of coffee. The less interesting but most likely origin is that “Joe” became a corruption for Jamoke or Java, where the best coffee originally came from. A man named Erdman wrote in the Reserve Officer’s Manual in 1931, “Jamoke, Java, Joe. Coffee. Derived from the words Java and Mocha.”