Heds Up: This headline writer was smokin'

[William Salmon]

>> On the other hand, the idiom "keeping up with the Jones", in addition to
>> its primary meaning of neighborly envy or competition, can also refer to
>> maintaining sobriety, or resisting "the jones".
>>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> But *does* anyone say "keeping up with the Jones," in the neighborly
> competitive meaning?  I have always heard "Joneses" in this context spoken
> clearly with the final /@s/, notwithstanding  the common error of writing "
> Jones' "for Joneses on lawn signs, &c.

One example that comes immediately to mind of "Keeping up with the
Jones" rather than with the "Jonses" is Waylon Jennings in the song
"Luckenbach Texas" -- though I guess with Waylon it could have been
either meaning.

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