This is going to sound quite idiotic. Me and my girlfriend have gotten into a debate over jimmies and sprinkles. For anyone who doesn’t know what those are, the they’re the either brown or colored thing you put on top of ice cream. No it’s always been my understanding the jimmies were the brown ones, and the colored ones are sprinkles. My girlfriend feels that jimmies do not exist, there’s sprinkles and rainbow sprinkles. Can any big ice cream junky cleay this up for me, it’s driving me nuts.
I think I have to side with ‘sprinkles’ on this one. All my life I’ve known both the brown (chocolate) and colored varieties of ice cream toppings to be sprinkles. I had never even heard the term ‘jimmies’ until about 5 years ago when my husband (who is from New England) referred to them. I just assumed it was a geographical term - something they said in New England. In my heart and on my ice cream they will always be ‘sprinkles’.
I’m from New England (Connecticut), and I’ve always known them to be sprinkles, too. Both varieties.
Oh no, this sounds like another milkshake/frappe discussion. I have to be the “odd” New Englander again, as I have always called them “sprinkles”–either chocolate sprinkles or rainbow sprinkles. The previous poster who had a spouse from New England notwithstanding, at least in Western Massachusetts we call them sprinkles. (I was the oddball New Englander who called them “milkshakes,” not “frappes,” by the way. I guess we are on quite a different loop here in WMass, as opposed to Boston.)
Oh, we also used to call them “shots” when we were young, or even “chocolate shots.”
I am also from New England and in my experience we have always called the brown sprinkles “jimmies,” albeit, nowadays only in private. I was told sometime in my early teens that the term “jimmies” is explosively politically incorrect in that it refers to a derogatory term for black people. Who woulda thunk it?
Shots is legit. Sprinkles is not. And, as everyone knows, anything outside 495 isn’t really Mass. Sorry. And the term is “jimmies”.
As for you, Sea Sloth, you’re wrong, as far as my research goes (none of which I can cite, as I’ve lost all of my URLs on the issue). Feel free to resume using “jimmies.”
I’m from Wisconsin, and grew up calling the brown/chocolate ones “jimmies” and the multi-coloured ones “sprinkles” because that’s what my mom called 'em.
Like so many other terms (soda/pop, anyone?), this seems to be primarily a regional variation. There’s no definitive way to say which is right, and it’s really not worth getting upset over (although it might be good for teasing each other, if you’re so inclined).
“Jimmies” is more of a midwesternism (not a new-englandism). I think its a better name for 'em, also.
this came up last night during Donut Day. I call all of 'em jimmies, colored or not, and I hate them. Don’t see the point of adding flavorless gobs of colored caranuba wax to my ice cream or donuts.
Anyway, Jimmies (in my book) has the same definition as Sprinkle. You can have rainbow jimmies.
jb
Everyone down this end of the Commonwealth calls them “jimmies,” unless they’re not from around here. And we’re outside 495, too…
Welcome to Fall River, Armpit of the Cape
Corpuient,
You are not alone. My wife and I are also split on the jimmies v. sprinkles debate.
occ - I think you are wrong about jimmies being midwestern and sprinkles New English. I grew up in Illinois. We always called them sprinkles. I never even heard of them being called jimmies until I met my wife. She grew up in New Jersey (not New England but not the midwest either.) She always called them jimmies. Neither of us diferentiated based on the color/flavor of the items in question. We live in Missouri now and my wife tried to order jimmies on her ice cream at a Dairy Queen once. She failed. I explained that she wanted sprinkles and there was no problem.
The softer ones are Jimmies, the crunchy more candy ones are Sprinkles. Color doesn’t matter.
The soft chocolate ones that are shaped kinda like little hyphens are “jimmies”. I’ve never seen them in any flavor other than chocolate or color other than brown. Hard round ones, of any color or flavor, are “sprinkles”.
I got caught for shoplifting a container of jimmies when I was three, so I remember these things. 
Another Conneticuter (Conneticutian?) chiming in for shots. That’s what I had always heard them called, but my husband (from Texas) had no idea what I was talking about when he first heard me ask for them.
Since it seems no one clicked on my link, here’s the jist that Funeefarmer provided from The Word Detective:
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."
Thanks Doug, you saved me from repeatedly dashing my forehead against my monitor.
I never heard them called jimmies here in Texas, just sprinkles. But am I the only one who has heard a man call his, um, balls jimmies?