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Words and Their Stories -- a program in Special English. Like every language, American English is full of strange expressions -- phrases that come from the day-to-day life of a people and develop in their own way.

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Our expression today, "keeping up with the Joneses," tells a human story that is found in one form or another in every county of the world. Here is the story as it often happens in the United States.

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It has long been the American dream that anyone can become rich and successful if he works hard and has some good luck. But when one becomes rich, he wants people to know it. And even if he does not become very rich, he wants people to think that he is. That is what the expression, "keeping up with the Joneses," is about. It is the story of someone who tries to look as rich and as successful as his neighbors.

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The expression was first used in 1913 by a struggling young American by the name of Arthur Momand. He told this story about himself. He began earning $125 a week at the age of 23. That was a lot of money in those days. Young Momand was very proud of his riches. He got married and moved with his wife to a very wealthy neighborhood on Long Island, outside New York City. But just moving there was not enough. For when Momand and his wife saw that their neighbors belonged to a country club, well, they too joined a country club. And when he saw that rich people were expected to ride horses, Momand went horseback riding every day. Momand and his wife also hired a servant and gave very grand parties for their new neighbors. It was like a race, but one could never finish this race because one was always trying to keep up. Momand and his wife could not even do that. The race ended for them when they could no longer pay for their new way of life. They left their wealthy neighborhood and moved back to an inexpensive New York City apartment.

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Momand later said that his experience had been a cruel awakening for him. But he was able to see the funny side of it. He looked around him and saw that many people do things just to keep up with their neighbors. And he decided that this would make a good comic series for newspapers. So, in 1913, he started writing one that appeared in many newspapers across the country. He called it "Keeping up with the Joneses" because Jones is a very common name in the United States.

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"Keeping up with the Joneses" came to mean keeping up with the people around you. Momand's comic series ran in different newspapers for over 28 years. People still try to keep up with the Joneses, but one can get very tired of trying to keep up because no matter what one does, Mr. Jones always seems to be ahead.

Voice of America

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