Scuttlebutt – a word meaning rumor, gossip. emerging information, or whatever news is being passed around the office coffee pot or water fountain. Not sure how much it is used in every day life, but I do know it was common in naval circles – and there is a reason why! From our good friends at Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day:

When office workers catch up on the latest scuttlebutt around the water cooler, they are continuing a long-standing tradition that probably also occurred on sailing ships of yore. Back in the early 1800s, scuttlebutt (an alteration of scuttled butt) referred to a cask containing a ship’s daily supply of fresh water (scuttle means “to cut a hole through the bottom,” and butt means “cask”); that name was later applied to a drinking fountain on a ship or at a naval installation. In time, the term for the water source was also applied to the gossip and rumors disseminated around it, and the latest chatter has been called “scuttlebutt” ever since.