Jimmies (1954)

[Beverly Flanigan]

"Hotdog-shaped"?  Sounds as bad as the mouse droppings of the Dutch!  I've
only seen the little dots.

At 10:57 PM 7/12/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>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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