One of my friends from Wisconsin(not Brian) taught me an interesting name for sprinkles, Jimmies. Growing up in Wisconsin, he thought it’s just another name for sprinkles(like Canadian call sodas as pops) and used it all his life until recently when he was corrected while he was visiting the state other than Wisconsin. It’s supposed to be a racial term against African Americans.
When he told me about this incident, I was curious as to where the term originated from and called Brian, who is from Wisconsin and happens to be African American.(He should know, right?)
Well, I was wrong. Brian didn’t know where it originated from nor ever heard of anyone using ‘Jimmies’ referring to sprinkles. So I took the liberty of doing a brief research on it to share it with you all.
According to the Urban Dictionary.Com, the term ‘Jimmies’ is Northern American term for sprinkles. In 1930, Russian immigrant owned candy company names Jut Born Inc. invented tiny dots of chocolates you can top your ice cream with by sprinkling it and gave it the name ‘Jimmies’.
This site also states that ‘Jimmies’ is a term for “The unfortunate byproduct of flatulence during oral sex.” This byproduct could be what we call ‘sh*t’, which could look like chocolate.(?) And the site also provides amusing example; “Dude, I was going down on my old lady the other day and she pelted me with with a shot of Jimmies.” (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jimmies).
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These are interesting theories of the term ‘Jimmies’ origin, but I found another theory that is most likely to be the definite origin on Wikipedia.org. According to Wikipedia. org, it originated from referring of the Jim Crow’s law and it explains as follows: “The phrase “Jim Crow Law” first appeared in 1904 according to the Dictionary of American English,[2] although there is some evidence of earlier usage.[3] The origin of the phrase “Jim Crow” has often been attributed to “Jump Jim Crow”, a song-and-dance caricature of African Americans performed by white actor Thomas D. Rice in blackface, which first surfaced in 1832 and was used to satirize Andrew Jackson’s populist policies. As a result of Rice’s fame, “Jim Crow” had become a pejorative expression meaning “African American” by 1838, and from this the laws of racial segregation became known as Jim Crow laws.[3]”(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow)
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Wether these theories are true or not, now you know it’s offensive and if anyone asks for ‘Jimmies’ on his/her ice cream, you can tell them to eat sh*t.
