Origin of "Jiminy" in "Jiminy Crickets"

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

Last week an ads-l message on "jiminy crickets" treated "jiminy" as deriving from "Gemini." A better etymology might be the German interjection "jemine," known to derive from Latin "Jesu domine" (e.g., Kluge, Etymologisches Woerterbuch der deutschen Sprache.)

A bibliographic reference on this subject is my item "Etymology of Exclamation Jiminy Crickets," in Comments on Etymology, vol. 34 , no. 2, Nov. 2004, p. 25.

Gerald Cohen

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