What Makes a Coffee Cup Functionalist, or Modern?  

I'm shocked.
For all of my life (67 years), where I have been (East and West coasts of America), a "cup" -- a tea cup, a coffee cup, anything called a cup in the way of china, crockery, tableware -- has had a handle. A measuring cup has a handle. A child's "sippy cup" might not have a handle.
A mug is a taller, a heavier, a more capacious sort of cup. It too has a handle.
Have I suddenly entered FunnyLand ? Where am I ?
Only in recent years have I found cafés where a "large" cup of coffee is served in a sort of small bowl, with no handle. Decidedly strange, says I. Some Continental custom ? Not pleasant, to me. You can't handle it with one hand unless you hook a thumb over the rim, risking getting it wet. Suave and comfortable ? Not so much. . .!
"A cup doesn't have a handle" ? Come on people -- snap out of it !!
http://www.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=cup%20and%20saucer&o...

Note:
I'm not saying it must ever be thus. Design on ! But must we rewrite history to prop up new ideas ?

I assure you SDR, as I peck...
I assure you SDR, as I peck the keyboard with my golden quiver, history is not being rewritten.
I'm suddenly really curious how people serve their beverages when asked using mug or cup.

I'm sure
you're not. But are you saying that cups haven't had handles, wherever you've been ?
Maybe it's a plot to make me think I'm going mad. . .like in "Gaslight". . .?

FunnyLand, next 5 Interchanges
FunnyLand, next 5 Interchanges

SDR...
In the interests of initiating a backwards perigrination through recollections of cobwebbed memory towards the origin(s) of the moral evil of using a bowl and saucer, as a "no-handle" coffee cup, in contemporary life. I first experienced the dastardly-bowl-and-saucer (DBAS)coffee in a hotel in an at-best, Rick Steves-grade, hotel in Arles, France, in 1990. At the time, I was told by a fantastically submissive, hunchbacked, male waiter serving me, via translation through the interlocution of my wife, that they had then been serving coffee with such a device for as long as the fantastically submissive, hunchbacked, male waiter could recall. As he claimed to be a member of the family that had owned and operated the restaurant for a couple generations, and as he appeared to be in his mid- to late-40s, I reckon the restaurant had to have been serving the coffee in bowl-and-saucer fashion, since some time in the 1960s. However, I cannot say with conviction of accuracy exactly how far back that fantastically submissive, hunchbacked, male waiter could recall. Such is the peril of eye-witness testimony, especially that recalled second hand some 30 years after the interview.
Perhaps others might ransack their wet drives (aka brain meat, not head cheese) to recall the earliest date that they "suffered" their earliest environmental insults of a DBAS coffee. 🙂

Erratum...
My math was faulty. My recollection was only 20 years old. 🙂

just interested....
Lux-Delux wrote: Just for example, a rounded bottom is needed to make a proper cappuccino.
Not entirely sure about this. My wife, who lived in Italy for three years, and worked in the coffee industry for five at one of the UK's leading coffee shops hasn't heard of this.
Lux-Delux could you fill us in on how the shape affects the making of a cappuccino.
Cheers, Paul.

I have it on good authority...aka, from a native speaker...
that both the Mandarin Chinese and Japanese translation of 'tea cup' is actually 'tea bowl'.
And I own about 20 or so Asian tea cup/bowls and not one of them have a handle. So SDR, I think that cups need not have handles at least in Asian circles. Granted most western ones do. I've never seen a handle-less mug. That would be a beaker in my understanding of the English language.
In Spain, I was presented with coffee in the DBAS format. It wasn't a reasonable way to drink coffee to my way of thinking. It's hard to pick up, requires two hands, and can lead to toasted fingers! Sipping tea one-handedly from a diminutive handle-less Asian tea cup is simple, just grasp from rim to base vertically. But the DBAS doesn't afford that option.

beakers
So a beaker does not have an handle, eh? - that was the question I was trying to get in edgewise.
A cup has a handle- attached to the bowl in one or two places.

Thank you all
and thank you Palli. Maybe I'm not alone after all ?
It's good to focus on the "how it ought to be" and the "here's how it's done in Asia" -- good all around. It's only troubling to posit a single model from the past -- either the Western (handled cups) or the Eastern (handless cups). You can understand how troubling it might be to a Westerner to have his Western historic model ignored. . .!
Beaker = mug without handle. Yes, that's how I understand it.
Rage on ! And, fie on the wretched DBAS !

So, a consensus is reached. In my mind...
The perfect coffee mug... plain white, heavy ceramic models with the slightly concave sides found in diners everywhere.
The perfect tea cup for black morning tea with milk. A somewhat scaled down concept of a coffee mug. Preferably with a dark color so as not to show the unsightly tea stains. The ones I use are similar to the red/black set below, only all black...well really a very dark chocolate/grey
The perfect cup for green tea or other asian-inspired teas is small, easily grippable from rim to base and enhances the aesthetic pleasure of drinking the tea. My fav cups that I have are similar to the ones below.

Destroyer mug
The sturdy and iconic diner mug: perfect. But don't forget the handle-less, marine subspecies. Link shows one example; I've seen them with the same narrow waist as olive's example, in a gray glaze, too.
Now, if only they came with a picture of a duck on the side.
http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/wwii-us-navy-corning-hornblower-wa...

Destroyer mug
HAH! I grew up with those as 'pudding cups'. My grandmother's sinfully delicious chocolate pudding (from scratch, natch) was always poured into these. Didn't even know they were coffee mugs!