Why do we say "Keep Up With The Joneses"?

Well-Known Expressions

Keep Up With The Joneses

Meaning:

Try to live up to the standard of your acquaintances. Usually there is also an implication that in doing so the person is stretching their financial resources.

Background:

Between 1913 and 1931 Arthur R Momand created a comic strip titled 'Keeping Up With The Joneses'. It ran in many USA newspapers. The comic strip was based on his own experiences as a newly married man living on $125 a week in Cedarhurst, New York.

More expressions and their source

Challenge yourself with BookBrowse Wordplays

Win This Book
Win Theo of Golden

Theo of Golden by Allen Levi

One spring morning, a stranger arrives in the small southern city of Golden. No one knows where he has come from…or why…

Enter

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    Days of Sun and Shadow
    by India Hayford
    A young woman’s coming-of-age story set in the early American frontier, shaped by tragedy, nature, and resilience.
  • Book Jacket
    Chelsea Girls
    by Catherine Lloyd
    A glamorous biographical novel on Mary Quant, whose daring design of the miniskirt revolutionized fashion.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket
    Summer of Love
    by Kerri Maher
    Three women reshape their family's Napa Valley winery after the 1967 Summer of Love.
  • Book Jacket
    Somebody Worth Killing
    by Jessica Payne
    Meet Nadia Davis, loving mom, devoted wife, secret assassin… and she needs a babysitter.
Book
Trivia
  • Book Trivia

    Can you name the title?

    Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

The C is A R

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.