Jimmies (1954)

[Indigo Som]

In my mind, "jimmies" is a subset of "sprinkles". Sprinkles are any
kind of tiny stuff -- colored sugar, little silver balls, jimmies,
flat dots or other shapes (I just saw a huge variety of them
yesterday at the local upscale baking supply place) you sprinkle on
ice cream or cakes or whatnot.

Jimmies are the little tiny hotdog-shaped things that come in
different colors, including chocolate. Anything not that shape is a
sprinkle, not a jimmie (although I have never used it as a singular
before this). I guess you could stretch the definition of jimmies to
include those tiny colored balls that are made of the same stuff as
jimmies -- I wouldn't say, "those aren't jimmies!" -- but the large
multicolored sugar crystals are definitely *not* jimmies to me.

I wonder if the shape of proper jimmies has anything to do w/ the
*other* meaning of jimmies or jimmie/jimmy hats?

Anyway I have no idea whether I picked up this understanding of
jimmies & sprinkles growing up in N. California or when I went to
Brown & hung out w/ all those Massachusetts people....

Indigo Som

>Peter A. McGraw wrote:
>>I know I've heard of sprinkles and never, until now, of jimmies.  But I
>>have  at best a nodding acquaintance with them so am forced to admit that
>>I'm not entirely sure what the definition encompasses.  There are the
>>little chocolate bits, and then there is another thing that's like large,
>>multicolored sugar crystals.  Does "sprinkles" (and presumably also
>>"jimmies") cover both, or only the chocolate kind?
>>
>
>I'm not familiar with the multicolored sugar crystals. But there are
>colored objects of the same size and shape as the canonical chocolate
>sprinkles/jimmies. I would call these sprinkles, and, I guess, if I
>were in Boston, I'd call them jimmies.
>
>--
>==============================================================================
>Alice Faber                                             faber at haskins.yale.edu
>Haskins Laboratories                                  tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
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