So, to begin, I thought I'd share a couple of interesting things that I learned today. The first came about about as I announced at a meeting this morning that I needed a "cup of Joe". One of the ladies I work with asked me where that expression came from. I told her an old boss of mine who had been in the navy during WW II said that it had something to do with someone in the navy who had given sailors coffee on board the ships. When we returned from lunch my colleague informed me that she had looked it up and that it referred to Josephus Daniels, former Secretary of the U.S. Navy under Woodrow Wilson. Daniels abolished wine on naval vessels.. From then on the strongest beverage aboard navy ships was coffee. Since then a cup of coffee has became known as "a cup of Joe".
Another colleague of mine used the expression "freeze the balls off of a brass monkey". The same woman who had earlier inquired about the "cup of Joe" said she knew that expression and it too was from the navy. A brass monkey was a brass plate on which cannon balls were stacked. Brass will react to hot and cold temperatures. When it got cold enough the brass would shrink causing the cannon balls to roll off of it. Above is a picture of a cannon with a brass monkey and cannon balls.