Jimmies

Someone at school told me that jimmies is actually a racial slur related to the Jim Crow laws ('course, she was from Jersey)...anyone else heard this?

Nope! See the Snopes page.

amanda, i think that's true.. someone's told me that before.i was at the barnstable county fair a few years ago, and asked for jimmies on my ice cream. the guy looked at me like i had 5 heads :-P

A couple a guys I knew in college who were from New Jersey were confused when I told them I had jimmies on my ice cream. They explained that in NJ jimmies are condoms.

Yeah, I've heard that they're sprinles if they're multi-colored, and jimmies if they're chocolate, because it was slang for Jim Crow. And even if it's not true, enough people around think it's true, so I call them all sprinkles.

I grew up in Saugus, and we called both the colored and chocolate kind jimmies.

Noooooo guys! You've got it allll wrong! The chocolate sprinkles known as, "Jimmies" were started in the Boston area a number of years ago. The reason for calling them Jimmies was because each time a person put these chocolate sprinkles on their ice-cream, the money spent on the sprinkles was donated to the Jimmy Fund. Hence, they started calling the chocolate sprinkles "Jimmies." I am not sure whether the money is still donated to the Jimmy Fund, but the act of kindness still lives on as the name "Jimmies" still continues.

Funny thing though I had some friends from Calgary, Alberta come visit Boston and when we went to get ice cream and I asked for 'jimmies' on top they started cracking up. Apparently 'jimmies' is slang for your private parts in Canada.

Actually, you're all wrong. Jimmy is a small, bat-eared mouse that lives in my bedroom. However, jimmy is also the name for your one eyed trouser snake, the impliments used for producing a cigarette containing t.h.c and c.b.d, a can i cant and any other small item you cannot remember the name for.

The "Jimmy Fund" started about 15 years ago. Jimmies or sprinkles, have been around for 50 or 60 years. I have always known them as jimmies and sprinkles.I am in the process of opening an ice cream shop. I will try to find the correct answer.

This is a story I found to help answer all of the burning question: "What came first? The Jimmies or the Sprinkles?"The beloved jimmy could be lostA sprinkling of history for a name that's melting away.By Michael VitezInquirer ColumnistWhich came first, the jimmy or the sprinkle?Evidence suggests the jimmy.A far more important question for local readers is: Which will endure?Sadly, the sprinkle.The jimmy - at least as a piece of slang, an expression of local flavor - is doomed."If it's not a dead term, it's a dying term," said Peter Georgas, vice president of Can-Pan Candy, the Toronto-based company that sells a million pounds of sprinkles every month."I will rarely, rarely get on the phone with somebody who asks me for a jimmy," he said. "And if someone does ask me for a jimmy, he's an older man."The fact is that jimmies and sprinkles are the same thing, which is almost nothing, a wisp of sugar, oil, emulsifier (don't ask!) and coloring.But by any name, the world consumes about 50 million pounds a year, according to an industry expert - about 1.3 trillion sprinkles or jimmies, give or take a few hundred million.Mostly, they're sprinkled on ice cream. But if laid end to end, they would stretch 2.3 million miles, enough to circle the Earth nearly 100 times.This region - from Philadelphia to the Jersey Shore - historically has been jimmies territory.Jimmies - not sprinkles - have been on the menu for 53 years at the Custard Stand on Ridge Avenue in Philadelphia."I don't bother people who call them sprinkles," said Vince Joyce, 21, a jimmies loyalist and employee for seven years. "But if you call them shots or dots or ants or black beads, I say something: 'You mean jimmies, right?' "Right across Ridge Avenue, at rival Dairyland, jimmies have been on the menu since the establishment opened 30 years ago.The present owner, Michael Kiedaish, 32, grew up with jimmies and says he will never change: "When someone tells you that something's a jimmy, it's a jimmy."But hints of extinction are everywhere, even in his own store."The college people... they're all sprinkles," said Laurie Taylor, 23, who has worked the counter at Dairyland for eight years. "And the yogurt people are sprinkles. And kids all say rainbow sprinkles because it sounds more fun."I grew up saying jimmies," she confessed, "but from working here so long, I've started calling them sprinkles."Sprinkles are encroaching everywhere. Old reliables like Kohr Brothers on the boardwalk in Ocean City are holding firm with jimmies, but upstarts like Ben & Jerry's on Rittenhouse Square? Sprinkles.At Daddy-O's Dairy Barn in Mount Laurel, owner Rob Cotton grew up in Northeast Philadelphia calling them jimmies, but on his menu he lists them as... sprinkles!"The distributors all call them sprinkles, so that's what I put on the menu board," he said."This is the No. 1 question: Is there a difference? And where does the name come from? I must hear that three or four times a week."Here is some history:Back in the 1930s, the Just Born candy company of Bethlehem produced a topping called chocolate grains. The man who ran the machine that made these chocolate grains was named Jimmy Bartholomew."Thus, his product became known as jimmies," said Ross Born, the chief executive officer. He was told this story by his grandfather and company founder, Sam Born. Just Born registered jimmies as its trademark, and continued producing jimmies until the mid-1960s - which is why the name was so popular here.The trademark expired and soon after, Just Born stopped making jimmies.This account, however, has been disputed.The Boston Globe investigated the origin of jimmies last winter after a reader inquired about a rumor that the term originally was racist - the idea being that some people refer only to chocolate ones as jimmies, and rainbow ones as sprinkles. Perhaps, the reader surmised, the word descended from Jim Crow.The Globe found no evidence of this, but did cite a commentary in 1986 on National Public Radio by the late Boston poet John Ciardi, who claimed: "From the time I was able to run to the local ice cream store clutching my first nickel, which must have been around 1922, no ice cream cone was worth having unless it was liberally sprinkled with jimmies."Ciardi, the Globe said, "dismissed Just Born as claim-jumpers looking to trademark someone else's sweet inspiration." His jimmies had come first.The truth may never be known.But what is undeniable, according to industry experts, is that jimmies gradually gave way to sprinkles, a more vivid and appealing name.For example, a world leader in sprinkles is QA Products outside Chicago. It started making sprinkles 10 years ago - under the brand name Sprinkle King.When Vince Joyce of the Custard Stand on Ridge Avenue gives his customers jimmies, he gets them from a Sprinkle King box.For the record, a chocolate sprinkle includes cocoa and offers a faint chocolate taste. But all rainbow colors taste exactly the same, which is to say, have virtually no taste.This was confirmed by Kasey Dougherty and Kathleen DeMichele of the Dairy Queen in Ocean City. On a rainy day last summer, they conducted a taste test - blindfolded.Neither could tell pink from yellow from green."Nobody gets rainbow sprinkles for the flavor," Dougherty said. "They get them for the colors, and the crunch."

Neat article, thanks.Where I grew up, "jimmy" was what you did to a lock when you wanted to open the door without a key.

In response to the comments of "Peter Georgas, vice president of Can-Pan Candy, the Toronto-based company that sells a million pounds of sprinkles every month", part of an article posted on 8/4/2004 - 1) why is the VP of a candy company answering sales calls, and 2) if I was calling Toronto and asking about a product, wouldn't I be using their terminology to talk about it? I wouldn't go to Starbucks in Seattle and ask for a medium regular coffee just because that's how I get a coffee at Dunkin Donuts in Boston...you have to speak the language of the people you are talking to!

Actually the term "jimmies" and the Jimmy Fund could well be true. The comment about the Jimmy Fund being started 15 years ago is completely inaccurate. The Jimmy Fund was started well over 50 years ago. Common sense would tell anyone that it had to have been started over 50 years ago mostly because the Red Sox have been associated with the Jimmy Fund for 51 years. The Jimmy Fund has been around since the Braves were in Boston.

thank you lindsay, I think you make the most sense here.

my hairy friend from IL didnt know what jimmies were at all but i did. jimmies were original invented to give jobs to homeless people from the streets they worked in the jimmie factorys. Mayor Jim Conelson started the program in 1973.

Jim Conelson was a stand up guy. My great aunt worked in the mayors office in the 1980's Aparently she only had good things to say about Jim and what he did for the homeless.

yeah- im from saugus too and we call them chocolate jimmies and colored jimmies...not sprinkles...

I'm originally from Lexington, MA and my whole life I've defined jimmies as chocolate and sprinkles as those other ones (yuck!). Now that I live in Miami, I find it really difficult to find a place that uses the term jimmies, but I REFUSE to deny my roots and call them sprinkles. I will fight to the end for the word jimmies. As far as I know it has nothing to do with jim crow laws, but more to do with who created them. I'll show these Southerners what jimmies are all about! Wish me luck...

I lived in MA for most of my life but I'm living in VT right now and working at a Ben & Jerry's, I get wicked happy when people come in and ask fuh jimmies cuz I know that they're from MA.-I call the rainbow ones rainbow jimmies.

I grew up near Boston and for most of my 58 years the chocolate things have been jimmies, and local lore attributed them to fundraising for the Jimmy Fund.Imagine my surprise when, in my travels to the Netherlands last year, I found they put a REAL Dutch cocolate jimmies on buttered toast, and call it breakfast!

I live in Berlin, but I'm originally from the Netherlands. I'm always twice a year 1 month in Boston Mass. It was for me very strange that Jimmi's were put on icecream. Because in Holland you put "muisjes"(mice)or "chocoladehagelslag"(choclate sprinklers)on bread at breakfasttime. My american friends laughed very loud when they were in a Dutch hotel and they found Jimmy's on the breakfast table

i have been wanted to buy sprinkles, in bulk but only from the sprinkle king and i have no clue how to find the company to order them

I am in S.C.,but bon and raised in Mass, I asked for a ice cream cone with jimmies, and I got the look of death. Apparentley down here it means "balls". Oh well...I've lived in a couple other states (in Navy), but Mass is the best by far..

I live in Manitoba, and as far as I knew, sprinkles (jimmies) were the oblong chocolate thingies, but they could come in all sorts of colours. The round crunchy thingies were weird sprinkles that sometimes got put on ice cream. I hadn't even heard of jimmies until a found a website explaining the difference.

Living in WI forever, they have always been "jimmies" and forever will be in my book. However, I am starting to run into a problem, as trying to buy them is becoming almost impossible. Does anyone know where you can buy chocolate jimmies in bulk? Please help, the future of the jimmie lies in the icecream bowl of my children!!!!

My third grade daughter's teacher informed his class at the ice cream social that "jimmies" was a racial term and they should use sprinkles. I was shocked. Now I can see it being avoided for many reasons. I learned a lesson that day!

I looked up the definition of Jimmies in the webster dictionary (www.webster.com) and here is what I found:Main Entry: jim?miesPronunciation: 'ji-mEzFunction: noun pluralEtymology: origin unknown: tiny rod-shaped bits of usually chocolate-flavored candy often sprinkled on ice creamNotice that its origin is unknown. After reading this entire trail of comments on jimmies, I've decided for myself that jimmies is not a racial slur at all. I'd like to believe it came from the Jimmy Fund, but now the dutch may have some more history behind their use of it. Maybe, they brought jimmies over here and somehow they found their way into icecream.What I think is most interesting is that some people are saying the origin is in PA and NJ but I'm a firm believer that it was more of a MA thing. (I'm from MA too.)But I guess the mystery will never be solved. No matter, jimmies will always live on in good ol' Massachusetts!

Oh and one more thing. On www.webster.com, the definition of a "jimmy" (separate from jimmies) is as follows:Main Entry: 1jim?myPronunciation: 'ji-mEFunction: nounInflected Form(s): plural jimmiesEtymology: from the name Jimmy: a short crowbarI think this is some associate the term with breaking a lock.

I was once at a Ben and Jerriesi and i asked for "jimmies". The guy looked at me wierd and told me that the term "jimmies" is no longer used because it was racial term for african american baby's.

My brother and I were born and raised in Virginia but both our parents are Pennsylvanians who relocated as adults. We always called "sprinkles" jimmies. We put them on ice cream and cookies and my mother always had jimmies as a staple in our household cupboard. My brother just got back from Texas where he ordered some ice cream for his daughter with rainbow "jimmies" on top. The african american male behind the counter asked him if he was from the north. He said no... I'm from Virginia. He then said that he had only heard northerners call sprinkles jimmies and that only the chocolate ones were called jimmies and that it was a derogatory racial term for african americans. My brother is not a racist and merely wanted some ice cream with jimmies for his 2 1/2 year old daughter! We have never heard of such a thing as racial ice cream toppings! When did this world get so out of control? Perhaps some people have too much time on their hands. I obviously do as I am researching this on the net. Thank you for having this information in existence...if nothing else I will get a laugh out of it everytime I order jimmies. Jimmies 4 ever!

Here's the story I was told but the elders in my family. It seems like the story is too small to be the start of a big thing but judge for yourself. To me, it's chocolate jimmies and rainbow sprinkles.The word Jimmies originated during the great depression. There was a little boy celebrating his birthday. His mom managed to get a small amount of ice cream for her son and his friends to celebrate. To make Jimmy's ice cream special, she shaved the small piece of chocolate she had and put it on Jimmy's ice cream. One of the other kids tried to take it. And the mom said "That's not yours, that's Jimmy's".

As per Brigham's website: http://www.brighams.com/ice_cream/facts.asp

you are all wrong...jimmies and sprinkles are the same exact thing. Jimmies adn sprinkles can be either choclate or rainbow.

Absolutely NOT! Jimmies are brown and sprinkles are also called "Joeys" here. At least they were when I was little.

This is why I love the internet, think about it for a second, why or where else could this conversation take place. If you read all the comments above this one and are still skeptical or curious this is what I have come to know. I have lived in Boston my entire life and yes they have ALWAYS BEEN and ALWAYS WILL BE JIMMIES, kinda like god almighty. The name is not so improtant other than that "sprinkles" is a complete rip off of the original. The name even is lame it describes what you do with jimmies not what they are. I have often heard that the term Jimmie is refering to a black man's penis, not Jimmy fund, Condoms, Joeys, balls, or baby or anything else, all lies and all urban legend. The truth is that a Jimmie or Jim Brownski is slang talk refering to a black man's penis a jimmie hat is a condom that is fact 100% ask any well versed brotha like myself. or check it out do the research http://www.anthonyvitti.com/hiphopdictionaryj.html or this one http://www.urbandictionary.com/browse.php?word=jimmie or this one So please cut out the non-sense and recognize the truth!!! JIMMIE

I grew up in Michigan and went to college in Boston. My mother, who was a Yooper (Michigan slang for someone from the Upper Peninsula), always called them "mouseturds." Never heard them called anything else until I got to Boston. I was pretty much relieved there was a polite name (or names) for the things. And, while I don't think there's a racial connotation to "jimmies", I still only use that term in Boston. I live in Conn. now, where many Bostonisms like "grinda" are still widely used, but "sprinkles" always does the job without a blank stare. Maybe I will try "mouseturds" someday for the heck of it.

i am cape verdean (black in my book) and will always say "jimmies" when referring to the infamous chocolate ice cream topping. only paranoid and closed-minded people would add a racial connotation to the term "jimmie" and it must be quite recent. i served in the military and traveled to many areas in the united states that required a weekly digestion of ice cream (in the south coffee flavor is mocha, don't ask me why), and i have never heard anyone say a word about the wrongness of "jimmies". if anything (where does that phrase come from, 'if anything'?), black men probably took the word for themselves, AS IF they actually had a sweet chocolate thingy (probably dated to the 70's/80's). eewwww! african-american babies...how friggin' ignorant. the worst i ever heard was (you know this candy if you're from south MA) chocolate babies - they're called n-babies in the south. yep. i can't eat them since hearing that. i can't eat toostie roll anything now that i know they are a reference to people of the tutsi nation in africa. i'm sure that widely-recognized commercial product name will never ever change. the dutch have it right - chocolate on everything!

In her poem Deer Dancer, Joy Harjo says a native American guy in a bar "jimmies" up to a woman and asks her what a nice girl like her is doing in a place like this. Any idea what the verb "jimmie" means in this context?

ihave a friend named jimmie and he is black and he doent like it win people say stupid shit like that about him.

I thought is was jimmies and rainbow jimmies or thats what I always called the "sprinkles"

There is nothing racial about the name Jimmies, and there no connection whatsoever with Jim Crow Laws. Jim Crow Laws were anti-African-American laws that many southern states passed following the Civil War, and they had nothing whatsoever to do with Massachusetts.Here's the story:The Brigham family of Boston was in the restaurant business in the early 1900's. In 1911, based on a bequest from the patriarch, the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital was founded. It later merged with Boston Lying-In Hospital and is now known as Brigham & Women's Hospital.Three years later, in 1914, a son, Edward L. Brigham, started an ice cream restaurant in Newton called Brigham's. It later became a chain of restaurants.In 1927 Sidney Farber graduated from Harvard Medical School and became a pathologist at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. In 1929 he became resident pathologist at Children's Hospital.Meanwhile, in the 1930's, a candy company in Bethlehem, PA called Just Born introduced chocolate grains that could be used as a dessert topping. The man who ran the machine that made the grains was Jimmy Bartholomew, so the grains became known as Jimmies.Fast forward to 1947. Dr. Farber established the Children's Cancer Foundation (now known as Dana-Farber Cancer Institute). The next year, 1948, Dr. Farber established a fund to raise money for children's cancer. A 12-year-old boy named Einar Gustafson became the poster boy. He attracted wide-spread attention after a 1948 radio broadcast.For the purposes of keeping the boy's anonymity it was agreed that the poster boy should have a more All-American sounding name.Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, where Dr. Farber first practiced, supported the fund. Brigham's Restaurants also decided to help raise money for the institute by offering to put chocolate grains on top of ice cream cones and sundaes for an extra penny. They got the grains from the Just Born Company, which sold them as "Jimmies." The penny went into the fund.The boy's nickname became Jimmy, and the fund became known as the Jimmy Fund."Jimmy" was a big fan of the Boston Braves baseball team (today they are the Atlanta Braves). When the Braves moved from Boston in 1953 the Red Sox took over as sponsors of the Jimmy Fund.That's how the sprinkles became known as Jimmies.

Having grown up in Boston I never knew jimmies as sprinkles not even the colored ones. My siblings and I always called them rainbow jimmies. When I worked at J.P. Licks I never heard people refer to the colored ones as sprinkles only jimmies. It was'nt until I moved to Texas last year and ordered jimmies on my ice cream that I truly realized that I am a true Bostonian.

I've heard jimmies called "shots"--I kid you not. Anybody know where that comes from? Is that a hyper-local slang from the Cape or the South Shore or did I hear that out of state? Speaking of "I kid you 'not'" as a phrase, I've yet to see any reference to the pronunciation I hear on the South Shore where the "t" at the end of some words comes out sort of like a non-resonant rolled "r"--a slightly fluttering sound. I'm not sure how to describe it in writing. You hear it in some Irish accents but the folks I've heard use that pronunciation down Cape are many generations from Ireland. This is a fascinating message board. I was rolling, reading about the "Review" mirror!

You may be true to calling them "Jimmies", but be careful where you use it. I'm from CA, and I've never heard it as a racial term (the southerners usually know all those), but I heard it and I thought the person was talking about condoms, as in derived from 'jimmy hats'. And "Jimmy" (sing.) is vulgar slang for a 'johnson', not balls.

I'm from MA and I'm living in OH and was ridiculed yet again for my "weird New England talk" today. OH is next door to PA which is supposedly where the term jimmies originated, so why don't people here use it?The whole racial slang thing is ridiculous. It's just a word for chocoloate ice cream toppings because nobody ever uses it as a slur. Have you ever heard it used in that manner? No, it's always used at the ice cream shop and that's it! Urban legends are stupid.

Here is a web site where you can get the Chocolate Jimmies. www.allthingsdutch.com.Select "chocolate" on the left then scroll down to:5015 - Hagelslag-Melk is Milk Chocolate5016 - Hagelslag-Puur is Dark ChocolateEnjoy

Here's the real scoop...no pun intended. Direct from a reliable jimmies source!http://brighams.com/ice_cream/facts.asp

i'm from so.California, where i have lived almost my entire life (save a four year jaunt in NE between ages 3 and 7). everyone here seems to call the ice cream/dessert decoration things "sprinkles." when i ordered rainbow jimmies in my ice cream at coldstone, the guy behind the counter seemed to know what i was talking about but the three friends i was with were so confused. their response was something like: "whaaat? jimmies?! (laugh, giggle) what are you talking about?" aparently they had never heard the term before. i honestly cannot say where i first heard it, but that's what i call the "sticks," both coloured(rainbow) and chocolate. the coloured "balls" are sprinkles.

All this talk of the term "Jimmies" dying out is a load of hoooie! I PERSONALLY have re-educated my son, members of Baskin Robbins, Chinese Buffets that often have soft-serve machines and other purveyors of fine ice cream that this is the CORRECT term for those lovely little gems that get caught in your teeth and melt just as quickly.If you are from the Boston area, or even consider yourself a New Englander, you carry the responsibility to ensure that this important word in our English language is kept alive and well.If I catch you in an ice cream parlor, Chinese Buffet or Grocery Store DARING to wear a Red Sox cap and asking for "Sprinkles", you are in for a good long talk on the history of "Jimmies" and will promptly have your beloved Red Sox cap replaced with one that has the letters "NY" on the front.Don't test me on this...I will make good on my promise!!! Ayuh!