Mind your Ps and Qs - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mind your Ps and Qs is an English expression meaning "mind your manners", "mind your language", "be on your best behaviour" or similar. The expression can either be written as Mind your Ps and Qs o...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_your_Ps_and_Qs
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World Wide Words notes that this puzzling and quirky idiom has inspired some fanciful explanations. In the 17th century, the expression "P and Q" meant "prime quality," which might have influenced the Ps and Qs phrase.
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ask.yahoo.com/20031127.html
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Ask A Scientist ... General Science Archive ... NEWTON is an electronic community for Science, Math, and Computer Science K-12 Educators. Argonne National Laboratory, Division of Educational Programs, Harold Myron, Ph.D., Division Director.
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www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen01/gen01325.htm
www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen01/gen01325.htm
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When looking at a block of type, the letters p and q can be mistaken for each other, hence mind your p's and q's. Why it is taken in a "good manners" sense, well, I'm not good mannered enough to know. Howard Barnes.
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www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen01/gen01989.htm
www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen01/gen01989.htm
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Joe wrote: The best explanation of "minding your P's & Q's" I've heard came from the fact that the barkeep would keep track of how much you drank on a chalk board. ... If that person was alive and they pulled the string, they were called a dead-ringer. This is also the origin of the term Graveyard Shift. The person from...
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www.rootsweb.com/~genepool/sayings.htm
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I want to find out the origin of drunk as a skunk. I just had a conversation with a native of Brazil. She says that the same expression exists in her homeland and that it comes from a method of catching skunks using tequila. ... You say there is no evidence that minding your p's and q's comes from typesetting. Tell that to...
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www.takeourword.com/Issue056.html
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To confuse the matter somewhat, we also have examples of a closely similar expression, P and Q or pee and kew. This was seventeenth-century slang and meant “highest quality”; ... A few of us had heard "minding our Ps and Qs" before, ... Answer originally posted in response to What is the origin of "Mind your P's and Q's?
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www.answerbag.com/q_view/642954
www.answerbag.com/q_view/642954
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When ale was ordered in British pubs, the tabs would be marked “p” for pints or “q” for quarts. The publican and drinker were both challenged to keep the tab straight. Another notion is that a child learning to read might have trouble distinguishing p and q, and therefore was warned by the teacher to be careful.
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imarketingmanagement.com/mindpsandqs.html
imarketingmanagement.com/mindpsandqs.html
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Practice good manners, be precise and careful in one's behavior and speech, as in Their grandmother often told the children to mind their p's and q's. The origin of this expression, first recorded in 1779, is disputed.
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www.answers.com/topic/mind-one-s-p-s-and-q-s
www.answers.com/topic/mind-one-s-p-s-and-q-s
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