Origin of Jump Steady

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, I’m Marvia Davidson, calling from Irvin, Texas.

Marvia.

Hi, Marvia.

Okay.

Welcome to the show.

Well, thank you.

I have a question about a phrase that I heard when I was probably about 11 or 12, and we had family friends, adult family friends of my parents, and the men were drinkers.

And I heard one of the men say one time, I need something to steady my nerves. I need a little bit of jump steady, S-T-E-A-D-Y.

So I heard them say that, and I heard it more than once. And then later on, I was watching Triple D with Guy Fieri, and there were black and white pictures of the designer, and in one of the pictures on the big barrel, it said jump steady.

So I was just wondering if you’d heard that before, and does it have anything to do with drinking and studying your nerves or studying?

So the picture of the black and white picture from the Guy Fieri show had on the barrel jump study, S-T-U-D-Y?

Yes.

Oh, interesting.

I want to focus on the first part, the men sitting on the porch drinking. That is a long-standing term, 1920s probably.

Jump steady has meant alcohol in black English since at least the 1920s. And we’re saying steady rather than steady.

Steady, yeah, S-T-E-A-D-Y.

But, but, there’s a nice but here. It is also referred to sexual relationship between a couple.

Kind of on the, so if you, if you jumped steady with someone that meant, it’s kind of the next step up from go steady. It means that you have a regular sexual relationship.

Kind of like think of jump one’s bones kind of along those lines.

Yeah.

So there’s always been in classic blues songs, there’s always been some double innuendo about what Jump Steady meant.

Look up Lucille Bogan, who had some really raunchy stuff, and she’s got a bunch of lyrics that use Jump Steady.

You can either read it to mean alcohol or you can read it to mean a sexual relationship.

Oh, I didn’t know that.

Yeah.

So when somebody says they need Jump Steady, you should ask for clarification.

Okay. Now, what about the jump steady, S-T-U-D-Y?

I think that’s just a coincidence or it’s just a play on words based upon the earlier jump steady.

Okay.

What an interesting phrase, jump steady.

I mean, what does that even, does it mean steadying your nerves?

Well, think about this for a second.

So, yeah, so the jump steady is to get like the steady kind of resupply of something that gives you the get up and go, gives you the energy, which is the jump.

Oh, okay.

And then in the sexual version of it, the jump is the act itself.

And then you are doing the act steadily, regularly. You have an understanding with this other person that this thing is going to happen between you on a regular basis.

Wow, that’s quite interesting.

Yeah.

So what do you think, Marvia?

Well, I don’t know what to think now, especially with the jump study, because the sign was on a big barrel.

It looked like maybe a pickle barrel. And I thought that perhaps college kids would get together and they said that they were going to study, but they would be in this diner or whatever it was.

And maybe it had something to do with jumping to the studies.

Yeah, maybe.

Well, if I come across anything new on Jump Study with a U in it, I’ll let everyone know on the show, all right?

Okay.

This has been fun.

Yeah, thanks for the call. Really appreciate it.

Take care now.

And thank you.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

Lucille Bogan, look her up.

There’s a ton of stuff on YouTube. It’s pretty raunchy. Probably want to put your earbuds in.

Oh.

Yeah.

Not safe for work, huh?

But a lot of it has like double, even triple entendre where you can just say, oh, that’s a really nice song about love.

Or you can say, whoa, what is she singing about?

Is that B-O-G-A-N?

B-O-G-A-N.

B-O-G-A-N.

Lucille Bogan.

I’m on it.

Classic voice, too. If you hear her, there’s nothing quite like her voice.

Okay.

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