"Jonesin" means to be yearning for something. OK, but why does it mean that? Anyone know?

jonesing: v 1. to vomit. 2. to be on crank. Submitted by Michael David, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 12-14-1996. 3. to feel withdrawal symptoms, especially from a drug. (“He was jonesing for a smoke.”) Submitted by Doug, Ohio, USA, 04-06-1997. 4. to crave something, not necessarily a drug. (“Man, I’m jonesing for a kiss!”) vomit under the influence of drugs withdrawal crave.

Michael Quinion is an excellent source for word and phrase origins. “If Quinion says something is true or false, I tend to believe him, just as I tend to believe .edu sites over run-of-the-mill trivia sites. Michael Quinion is highly regarded in word-hugger circles for his knack for tracking down the truth about words and phrases. He not only has a useful and entertaining site but also sends out a weekly e-newsletter. Sign up.”

Evan Morris, the erstwhile Word Detective, also has a newsletter and he is great, too. These fellows are professional word mavens, and they are among the best. Other word-related newletters are put out by Paul McFedries and Anu Garg. They don’t usually deal in word origins, but they’ll send you some entertaining word-of-the-day information.

If you google for “Michael Quinion,” “Evan Morris,” “The Word Detective,” “Paul McFedries,” or “Anu Garg,” you’re likely to run across a lot of other interesting word sites. So far I’ve been unable to find anything on the origin of the phrase.

Update

In these “Reflections on a weekend in New York City” you will find this: “I learned while standing in line for the bathroom at Acme Bar & Grill, that Great Jones Street in NYC is where the phrase, ‘got a jones on’ originated. Apparently before it became known as ‘that little stretch of street where the southern food place is’ a lot of junkies hung out there.” That might be right, but don’t accept single source etymologies — especially when the source is someone waiting for a public toilet to become available in NYC.

The expressions apparently postdated Partridge, but Jonathon Green’s The Cassell Dictionary of Slang has references to “a jones” as a craving and to “jonesing” as experiencing withdrawal symptoms, but says nothing about Great Jones Street.

“For word-related questions, the alt.usage.English FAQ is another excellent resource.” Give it a try.

"Keeping up with the Jones" was a phrase that described the desire to aquire material wealth at a rate comparable to ones peer, or neighbours.

I always wondered if 'Jonsin' originally started as in to 'Jones' for something materialistic, the innate yearning that comes from desire and envy. Then I can see that transitioning into a context where you absolutely must have something - as in an addiction. To jones for a smoke .. its a far fetched theory tho.

Although it may not always work for word origins, a logical progression such as the one you suggest is a perfectly reasonable guess. Until someone comes up with a reliable source that says otherwise, I like your idea. It's certainly as plausible as the "Great Jones Street" version -- a version that reminds me of the famous twenties New Yorker magazine cover.

I like "the flyover states" much better than New York and I like just about anyone else better than New Yorkers -- in general. Not Texans, though. The only thing bigger than a Texan's head is the University of Texas' Marching Band's Big Bertha bass drum. I hate it.

I have to agree with the Ferret. (Feel like I'm watching some Blockbuster commercial) *smile*

The never ending Smith-Jones Syndrome.

Makes more sense than some stree in NYC, that anyone else in the country couldn't care less about.

And since I'm jonesin for a smoke, I'm abandoning my cube and hitting the air.

my doubts about Great Jones Street being the origin for jonesin'. No doubt large cities account for more slang than small towns.
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The Great Jones

(Etymology)

Q: East Third Street becomes Great Jones Street between Broadway and the Bowery. Who was Jones and what was so great about him?

A. Jones is Samuel Jones, a lawyer sometimes called Father of the New York Bar. He owned the land on which Great Jones Street now runs and bequeathed the property to the city with the caveat that any street that ran through the land be named for him.

In 1789 a street was opened there, but New York already had a Jones Street in Greenwich Village. So the new street was named Great Jones Street because it was wider than the norm.

In his desire to be remembered, Jones may have linked himself with a different aspect of the city's culture. The slang term "jones," meaning an addiction to drugs, is said to have originated among addicts who lived in Great Jones Alley, off Great Jones Street, between Broadway and Lafayette Street.

(extract from the "New York Times" site, article by Ed Boland, Jr)

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/17/nyregion/17FYI.html
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I've always thought "Jonesing" came from George Jones, who is well known for having had difficulty with his withdrawal from alcohol, cocaine and various other things. Does anyone know how far back it goes as a term for drug withdrawal?
I also believe "Keeping up with the Jones'" may be a reference to a 1970s song by George Jones and Tammy Wynette (who were married at the time), called "Two Story House."

Not likely.

Everything NY had this to say about a New York Times William Safire article from May 11, 2003: "The Way We Live Now: On Language; Jonesing." The Safire article is still available, but must be purchased.

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Jonesing?

William Safire's On Language column this past weekend concerned the etymology of Jonesing, with a side of Zeta-Jonesing. Safire didn't do his usually thorough job on this one, attributing the phrase to 1960's heroin addiction based on the Dictionary of American Slang. Maybe one of the seven or eight ENY readers out there can help me with this -- I'm almost positive I've read somewhere that the phrase comes from Great Jones Alley, the scary little throwback of a street off Lafayette between Great Jones Street and Bond Street. I can't imagine that I'd make up something this specific. If anyone has a source for this please post it as a comment to this entry Google's no help on this one, already checked).

May 13, 2003 04:55 PM | Posted by Ari

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The Phrase Finder Re: Jones/jones
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Posted by Jim on January 11, 2002 at 18:06:08:
In Reply to: Re: Jones/jones posted by ESC on January 10, 2002 at 22:40:13:
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: : : A "Jones" is a drug addiction and "Jones-ing" means the craving or withdrawal symptoms. I am away from my library right now, but I believe the terms have their roots in Black English. I'll check that. It has come to have other meanings, like "love Jones," etc.
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: JONES - 1. A strong, overwhelming desire for anything you indulge in or acquire and never get enough of - money, sex, chocolate, gambling, clothes, etc.

Originally referred to addiction to heroin or cocaine. 2. Penis. From "Black Talk: Words and Phrases from the Hood to the Amen Corner" by Geneva Smitherman (Houghton Mifflin Co., New York, N.Y., 1994)

: jones - noun. From family name; semantic development unknown. Originally Black English. 1. narc. a. drug addiction, especially to heroin. 1962 Maurer & Vogel, Narc. Add., (ed. 2) 308: Jones: A drug habit. From "Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, Volume 1, H-O" by J.E. Lighter, Random
House, New York, 1994.

love Jones? Play on words?

ME AND MRS. JONES
Billy Paul
- written by Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff and Cary Gilbert - a #1 hit for Billy Paul in 1972 (released September 1972)

Me and Mrs. Jones, we got a thing going on,
We both know that it's wrong
But it's much too strong to let it cool down now.
We meet ev'ry day at the same cafe,
Six-thirty I know she'll be there,
Holding hands, making all kinds of plans
While the jukebox plays our favorite song.
Me and Mrs., Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones,
Mrs. Jones got a thing going on,
We both know that it's wrong,
But it's much too strong to let it cool down now.
We gotta be extra careful that we don't build our hopes too high
Cause she's got her own obligations and so do I,
Me, me and Mrs., Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones,
Mrs. Jones got a thing going on,
We both know that it's wrong,
But it's much too strong to let it cool down now.
Well, it's time for us to be leaving,
Iit hurts so much, it hurts so much inside,
Now she'll go her way and I'll go mine,
But tomorrow we'll meet the same place, the same time.
Me and Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones.

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The Phrase Finder Re: Keeping Up with the Joneses
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Posted by ESC on January 18, 2002 at 15:35:12:
In Reply to: Re: keeping up with the Joneses posted by bob on January 17, 2002 at 20:31:56:

: : I understand this phrase to mean keeping up at least the appearance of wealth or class to the roughly equivalent degree that one's neighbors exhibit same, particularly in terms of the display of physical possessions. The earlier discussion of Jonesing, and particularly the noun, Jones, made me wonder if there was a connection, since both the noun Jones and the phrase "keeping up with the Joneses" seem to hinge on acquisition. On the other hand, "Jones" is quite a common surname in the U.S., and I had previously assumed that "keeping up with the Joneses" was phrased with "Joneses" in it to impart the ubiquity of the phenomenon. Any ideas on whether ubiquity or acquisitivity is the guiding principle here?

: "Keeping up with the Joneses" has a much longer history than "Jones," meaning habit. The latter originated in Afro-American slang, made more popular/widespread by the song "I've Got a Basketball Jones," a few years back. I don't believe there's a connection. (By the way, last I heard, Johnson was the most common American surname. The single most common name in the UK is David Jones.)

KEEPING UP WITH THE JONES -- "According to his own account, cartoonist Arthur R. ("Pop") Momand lived in a community where many people tried to keep up with the Joneses. Momand and his wife resided in Cedarhurst, New York, one of Long Island's Five Towns, where the average income is still among America's highest.

Living 'far beyond our means in our endeavor to keep up with the well-to-do class,' the Momands were wise enough to quit the scene and move to Manhattan, where they rented a cheap apartment and 'Pop' Momand used his Cedarhurst experience to create his once immensely popular 'Keeping Up with the Joneses' comic strip, launched in 1913. Momand first thought of calling the strip 'Keeping Up with the Smiths,' but 'finally decided on 'Keeping Up with the Joneses' as being more euphonious.' His creation ran in American newspapers for over 28 years and appeared in book, movie, and musical-comedy form, giving the expression 'keeping up with the Joneses' the wide currency that made it a part of everyday language." From "The Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins" by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).

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Thanks for your detailed response, which proves my theory wrong. I'm glad to know better. What kind of music should I listen to?

Others can aim to be the forums’ resident experts on propriety. I’ll take a not-so-somber shot at being the capitalization, punctuation, and spelling maven.

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Originally posted by FateWineRoses: So I’ll tell you the same thing I told eagle. You don’t like the tone of the thread or the board you’re more than welcome to go away.

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Well, THAT was interesting. A couple of comments though.

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FateWineRoses chose to say the sentences in one breath and without pause, projecting a certain frame of mind.

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As for capitalizing eagle—the user’s screen name is not capitalized, so lower case is an impeccable choice. However, eagle334th has politely requested that the diminutive “Eagle” be capitalized. If that’s the way she wants it, that’s the way to go. Unless you want to annoy her.

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"I like 'the flyover states' much better than New York and I like just about anyone else better than New Yorkers -- in general."

It's a good thing he qualified that with "in general." Since then, Marty D'Mello has become HD's partner and one of his favorite people on the planet. If not in his top ten, real close -- and HD has about seven or eight in the wife, kids, and grandkids category.