Disappointment

[FuSoYa]

I just bought some yogurt at the store and noticed on the lid, it's printed: "Contains LIVE and active yogurt cultures including L. ACIDOPHILUS!" I was really psyched then , not only at the prospect of crawly, cilia-covered microbes oozing down my throat but also especially because the yogurt people seemed so excited about the fact that the microbes in the yogurt were live! As if I open the yogurt lid and can see the flat, white surface of the yogurt teeming with protozoan virations. Which would have been awesome!

In any case, I looked up the L Acidophilus and to my disappointment found that they are not googly-eyed cilia fiends, but are instead poop shaped rods.

Needless to say I am now less excited about my yogurt.

 

[xfer]

Anything is cooler with cilia, dude.

 

[xfer]

uh...except human bodies, I mean.

 

[FuSoYa]

Human body cilia would be cool if we could lie down flat and still be able to get from place to place!

 

[minxnim]

you didnt know your yogurt was alive dude?

 

[avi]

anything with yeast culture is alive, too. like BEER!

 

[FuSoYa]

That is cool, but the point is what do the living things look like?

POOP SHAPED RODS.

 

[xfer]

you can buy yogurt with inactive cultures, but it's grosser to imagine eating a creamy ocean of corpses than a teeming wonderland of life.

 

[FuSoYa]

What would a live poop rod do that a dead one could not?

I mean, I guess they could spin.

 

[minxnim]

i just prefer not to eat things that are secreted from holes in a cow's crotch, but you know.. preferences preferences....

p.s. and those are rather poop shaped. but you could also say that they look like jimmies.

 

[FuSoYa]

preppy is racist!

 

[minxnim]

haha omg okay okay! call the sprinkles then! keeeeyrhist!

 

[xfer]

I work at a place that sells ice cream, and a few months back my boss finally changed the JIMMIES sign to SPRINKLES after a horde of complaints by uneducated, self-righteous Boston College students. I argued and argued that he should keep JIMMIES, but he caved to the PC police.

Now whenever anyone comes in and complains about the sprinklification of our sign, I give them a talk about the Olde English origins of the word "jimmies" ("The phrase 'jim-jams' meant 'little or insignificant things'...") and the horrible injustice perpetrated on the store. Then they slap me for being a pedantic bore and leave.

 

[VangelicSurgeon]

wait, jimmies comes from "jim-jams"? are you serious!? I need to go to JP Licks and straighten a few people out...

 

[minxnim]

i wouldnt' slap you for that explanation. i'd roll my eyes at you, but i totally wouldnt slap you for it.

p.s. i think 'jimmies' is cuter to say and your boss sucks for changing the sign.

 

[xfer]

yeah, there's this whole myth about "jimmies" coming from jim crow or something incredibly stupid, but it ain't got shit to do with race.

if only everyone were like you, preppy! oh well. I think that since this is a massachusetts ice cream store and they say stupid regional things like FRAPPE instead of MILKSHAKE, they ought to say JIMMIES, too. personally, i always said "shots".

 

[xfer]

http://www.word-detective.com/030299.html

Dear Word Detective: Does anyone know the etymology of "jimmies" in the sense of "chocolate sprinkles"? I assume it's a New England word, since I never heard it when growing up in New Jersey. (No New Jersey jokes, please.) -- Larry Davidson, via the internet.

New Jersey jokes? Why would I want to tell jokes about New Jersey? Never heard of such a silly thing. Besides, I just happen to have been born in Princeton, New Jersey myself. My visits to the Garden State in recent years, however, have been limited to the New Jersey Turnpike, a road that rivals, in my opinion, many of the scariest amusement park rides in the land. I have often wished I could meet the folks responsible for the numerous and always amusing surprise lane merges one encounters on the approach to New York City. I have much to say to them.

You're correct in your assumption that "jimmies" is primarily a New England term for what the rest of the country (and probably the world) know as "sprinkles." According to the Dictionary of American Regional English, "Jimmies" is actually a trademarked term for a brand of candy (not necessarily chocolate) sprinkles, which they explain are "tiny balls or rod-shaped bits of candy used as a topping for ice-cream, cakes and other sweets."

Although "Jimmies" is trademarked, my guess is that the term was in generic use for many years prior to the founding of Jimmies as a brand name. And while "jimmies," meaning chocolate sprinkles, first showed up in English around 1947, "jimmies" has also been used since around 1900 as a short form of the old English slang word "jim-jam."

"Jim-jam," in turn, has since the 16th century meant "a trivial article or knick-knack," so it's not too great a stretch to see a connection there with candy "jimmies," which are certainly trivial. "Jim-jams" was later used to mean "little quirks" or "eccentricities," which also fits in with the candy sense. (Both "jim-jams" and "jimmies" were also used as slang for delirium tremens, but I think we can safely ignore that connection.)

As for the ultimate origin of "jim-jam," the presumption is that it arose as a nonsense word, meaning nothing, except, of course, to ice cream sundae lovers.

 

[VangelicSurgeon]

technically a milkshake doesn't have ice cream in it and a frappe does.

 

[xfer]

you are correct, sir! (although if i gave someone a milkshake when they order a milkshake, they would be pissed as fuck)

 

[minxnim]

i dont understand why people have to like, stop regionalization of food names and shit? what the hell is wrong with everyone????