Jimmies???
 

Personally, I call them sprinkles. But that is not the point here, to get into a heated debate about what they are actually called.

This girl in my Pop Culture class claims the term is demeaning and racial. She claims "a guy in New England" told her that jimmies/sprinkles once only came in chocolate flavor, making them brown. (those of you quick on the uptake can see where this is going).
She is saying the term jimmies comes from the Jim Crow laws, set to segregate former slaves...ergo making the term offensive.

If I strech my imagination faaaar enough, I could see the connection. But I have never heard of this orgin before, and neither has The Dictionary of American Hertiage, which is slightly more reliable then "a guy in New England."

Anyone else hear of this origin?
Anyone find this offensive?


Discuss:)

That is the silliest thing I have ever heard.

Remember when those people were saying that Snapple was owned by the KKK because of the ship on the label and the K in the circle?

Is proctor and gamble really a bunch of satan worhshipers?

From the Philadelpha Inquirer
 

"Back in the 1930s, the Just Born (producer of Peeps) 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."

hijack

My Jersey-Guy (Exit 11 :D ) husband calls them sprinkles, too. And as far as he's concerned the best ice cream comes from Carvel.

/end hijack

I too have been engaged in a heated sprinkles/jimmies debate.
After much research into the topic: Here's the deal.
Sprinkles are the colored one, Jimmies are the chocolate ones. This is according to the people who work at :TCBY, Baskin Robbins, & Dairy Queen.
Procrastination in college leads to all kinds of useless jeopardy knowledge later in life.

[squawking 7500 again (that's the aircraft transponder code for 'hijack')]

Oh... to have a Carvel or two here in Texas... Haven't had one since I left South Florida over twenty years ago! (Quite a few of 'em in the unofficial Sixth Borough of New York City (in the wintertime) :)

[squawking 1200 (transponder code for aircraft operating under visual flight rules (VFR))]

I used to love Carvel. Wednesday was Sundae at Carvel which meant two sundaes for the price of one. Woo Woo! They had great birthday cakes. They closed the Carvel near me a few years ago. Birthdays and Wednesdays haven't been the same. :(

Am I the only person out there who thought something else when they saw the word jimmies? I was thinking of jimmie hats.

Anyway, Cold stone has the best ice cream but in nyc, I'd take serendipity and penn state has good ice cream on campus.

-Rudey

No one in the south (at least Arkansas) calls them jimmies. But I never would have even THOUGHT to have been offended by them!

Along the same lines though...here's something I HATE HATE HATE. Sometimes you'll hear folks....namely uneducated, old people...call brazil nuts "n----r toes". :mad: :rolleyes: :eek: My grandma called them that once and I was never so offended in my life!

ETA: I meant brazil nuts, not hazelnuts :o

I always heard it was Brazil nuts.

I had never heard "jimmies" until I went to school in RI and met someone who called them "jimmies."

This sounds reasonable.

I once mentioned that I don't like jimmies, and took a lot of flak from my friends - my fiance's named Jim(my)!!

Oops that's what I meant. I fixed it.