Where did the word benchmark come from anyway?

Ben Rockwood, over at cuddletech.com explained in a post on I/O benchmarking where the term originates:

The term comes from wood working and other such crafts. When a craftsman is making, for instance, table legs you first carefully cut your wood to size, measuring for exactness. Once it's done properly you can then take that funny flat pencil, make a pencil mark on your bench and then use that to measure up all the following pieces to speed the process along. Based on the mark you know if your other pieces are too long or short and make the needed alterations. The mark is not a measurement per se, but rather a quick method of judging difference between things that should be similar.

Think about how you use benchmarks. Are they just to get some data to impress your friends, or do you actualy use them to see how your current system measures up to expections? Benchmarks are an important part of system administration, because without them how can you know if a system is behaving as you would expect? I can't give any good examples, but it may be something to look into.