Missed-point dept. (origin of "Joe" (coffee)

[Gerald Cohen]

Here¹s an earlier one:

1911 ­ ŒOsgar and Adolf¹ cartoon by Condo; title: ŒEvery Little Melody Has
Meaning of It¹s [apostrophe: sic] Own¹; _The Tacoma Times_, Feb. 27, 1911,
p. 4; [misspellings below: sic]
First frame, Osgar to Adolf: ³Diss moosik box shoult make you der orders
plain, Adolf.  For instance, ven id plays ³Old Black Joe² id means coffee
mitoudt cream.  .²

This is mentioned in the book I co-authored with Barry Popik and David
Shulman _Origin of the Term ³Hot Dog²_, 2004. P. 105.

Gerald Cohen



On 6/20/11 8:39 AM, "Jonathan Lighter" <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

>
> The only difficulty with the "old black Joe" derivation is that the evidence
> is very late: a 1967 allusion in HDAS, though referring to the U.S. Navy in
> WWII.
>
> The printed evidence suggests that "Joe" has always been especially common
> in the Navy.
>
> Earliest exx. are Godfrey Irwin's 1930 _American Tramp and Underworld Slang_
> and a 1931 navy officers' manual.
>
> In recent years a theory has circulated that "Joe" for coffee originaly
> alluded to Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, who banned spirituous
> liquors from Navy ships beginning in 1914. This is superficially plausible
> but also less direct than a pun on the title of Stephen Foster's song.
> Perhaps a consilience of "Joes" accounts for the early and notable
> popularity of "Joe" in the Navy.
>
> I've found no evidence of the term's existence during WWI.
>
> "Jamoke" appears to date from the 1890s (in form "jimokey").
>
> JL
>
> On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 6:33 AM, paul johnson <paulzjoh at mtnhome.com> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       paul johnson <paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: Missed-point dept. (origin of "Joe" (coffee)
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> --
>>
>> Paul johnson
>> Which came first, Jamoke or Joe?
>>
>> On 6/19/2011 10:44 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>> On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 9:00 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard<gcohen at mst.edu>
>>  wrote:
>>>> I believe "Joe" (coffee) really does derive from "Old Black Joe" as part
>> =
>>>> of what's known as hash-house lingo
>>> Hmm. That does seem quite sensible!
>>>
>>> --
>>> -Wilson
>>> -----
>>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
>>> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>>> -Mark Twain
>>>
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>>
>> --
>> She was part, "HELL NO" and part, "They can cure that stuff now can't
>> they?"
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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