Hot (sic) having been born or raised in Massachusetts, my parents who are now in their 70's were from the Jersey suburbs of NYC. They recently recalled that when they were in school, ALL students were taught to speak clear and concise English. This included African-American students. Slang was not accepted and in order to graduate, a student had to speak and read at an acceptable level. As I was growing up in the Merrimack Valley of Massachusetts, I do remember being corrected at home MANY times for grammar and pronunciations I had picked up from other classmates, as well as teachers! I am extremely grateful to my parents for insisting on proper speech!! Sometimes I struggle when conversing with life long natives...It's actually embarassing. There is nothing amusing or attractive about poor speech.

If the part about being taught proper English in the 70s in New Jersey is true, how times have changed.

An accent or dialect is not the same as "poor speech." It's character and gives people a sense of place and time.

Lie-berry

By anon on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 11:46am.

One that bothers me is when people say "lie-berry" for library. It may be a dialect or colloquialism, but talk about sounding like a flavor of ice cream.

A better question is...

By anon on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 9:50am.

Why don't you and everyone else call then jimmies?

Hey look...

By Pete Nice on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 11:01am.

I don't want to waste my time trying to explain what colored sprinkles I want on my ice scream, and I don't want to hear how many types of sprinkles the damn place has. I want jimmies, and they better have them, and the employee sure as hell better know what I'm talking about when I order them. (Bubbling Brook only finally got Jimmies last year for some crazy reason).

Jimmies

By Googie Baba on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 11:18am.

I used to call them Jimmies. But then a good friend of mine from Southie told me that Jimmies is actually a racial slur. I don't know if it's true, but that is why I don't call them that.

PS - I am not calling anyone on this thread is a racist. I am not saying people who use the term are racist. I am just reporting what I heard and why I don't call them Jimmies.

Heard it where?

By anon on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 11:24am.

South Boston = boogie man

And I used to call soda "tonic"

By Moxie on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 11:48am.

Until I realized that someone, somewhere, clutching their pearls, was probably offended by that.

So now, I just don't speak at all. I mean, why run the risk?

It's probably best.

By Googie Baba on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 3:58pm.

It's probably best.

This again??? It's not a

By anon on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 12:18pm.

This again??? It's not a racial slur. Google it.

False

By Marsha Scorsese on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 1:43pm.

That's not true at all. They're named after an employee of the company who made them.

http://www.snopes.com/language/offense/jimmies.asp

Your good friend is mistaken

By Jeff F on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 3:03pm.

'Jimmies' are named after a beloved employee at the Pennsylvannia candy company which branded them that in the 20s/30s. It's been an east coast slang term for chocolate sprinkles for many decades.

Btw, the "Jimmy Fund' is named after these - a result of a joint Brighams Ice Cream/Children's Cancer Foundation fundraiser in the 40s. They gave the poster boy the fictional name Jimmy as a tie-in with the ice cream store and in order to allow the actual kid his anonymity.

Most of the urban legends about it being a racial slur seems to stem from a confusion with the unrelated late 20th century slang 'jimmy hat' meaning a condom. That term, btw, was used back in the 80s but is pretty uncommmon today - like hearing someone unironically say "gnarly".

Guess some folks just enjoy scandalizing/being scandalized. In the future, you may want to take anything that 'good friend' tells you with a massive grain of salt.

I am glad to hear it is not a

By Googie Baba on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 3:41pm.

I am glad to hear it is not a slur. No need to be attacking my friend from Southie. I am sure there are reasons why she thought it had racial undertones.

There was actually an article

By anon on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 4:40pm.

There was actually an article awhile back in the Ideas section of the Sunday Boston Globe which challenged the idea of the racial slur.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2...

Sprinkles are rainbow flavor

By BPlusPlayer on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 12:27pm.

Sprinkles are rainbow flavor jimmies.

What are chocolate sprinkles then?

By Pete Nice on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 12:40pm.

They are not rainbow flavored...

By Wally Brown on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 12:51pm.

Rainbow jimmies or chocolate jimmies, there is no flavored. Sprinkles are those little round sugar pellets.

How do you know?

By Sock_Puppet on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 1:36pm.

When's the last time you ate a rainbow?

rainbows

By KTM on Sat, 05/04/2013 - 5:04pm.

Haven't eaten them, but I've tasted one, thanks to Skittles.

That was classic

By crispino on Sun, 05/05/2013 - 7:55am.

I love how I thought these comments were going to be a big debate over whether the shop was donating the profits from the sale of this ice cream to the One Fund (and if they're not, then whether it's appropriate for them to be using the "XYZ Strong" idea), and instead it's all about jimmies.

Yep--this post is Jimmy

By anon on Sun, 05/05/2013 - 10:03pm.

Yep--this post is Jimmy Strong!

Even our ice cream is resilient

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