98:, "investigations by the Oxford English Dictionary in 2007 when revising the entry turned up early examples of the use of Ps and Qs to mean learning the alphabet. The first is in a poem by Charles Churchill, published in 1763: ‘On all occasions next the chair / He stands for service of the Mayor, / And to instruct him how to use / His As and Bs, and Ps and Qs.’ The conclusion must be that this is the true origin."
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Another folk etymology comes from the pubs in
Scotland and England. The reason sometimes given is that Scottish pints and quarts were about 3 times larger than English pints and quarts, it was important to notice because the mug for a Scottish pint was similar (but still larger) than an English
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When pupils were taught lowercase alphabet, the position of the vertical line before or after the circle represented different letters: d & b, p & q. Pupils also had to mind the order of letters in the alphabet (p comes before q). As noted by W. D. Henkle in
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Nevertheless, a number of alternative explanations have been considered plausible. One suggests "Ps and Qs" is short for "pleases" and "thank-yous", the latter syllables pronounced like the letter "Q". Another proposal is from the
English
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Yet another plausible source for the expression is derived from the
English coinage from the nineteen hundreds where a pence is represented by a P and a quarter pence (the farthing) is indicated by a Q.
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consumed by the patrons, telling them to "mind their Ps and Qs". This may also have been a reminder to bartenders not to confuse the two units, written as "p" and "q" on the
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in medieval
England; as the English dialect of the 11th century had no letter q, one must watch one's usage with the French Norman conquerors.
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Attempts at explaining the origin of the phrase go back to the mid-19th century. One explanation favoured in a letter to the editors of
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dated 1851, is a literal interpretation of the saying, regarding possible confusion between the lowercase letters
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for "highest quality" used in 17th-century
English: "The Oxford English Dictionary has a citation from Rowlands’
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meaning "mind your manners", "mind your language", "be on your best behaviour", or "watch what you're doing".
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166:(wigs) while dancing. However, there is no French translation for this expression. Another is from
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p's and q's could be easily mistaken, especially as they are mirror-reversed from the printed result.
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Other origin stories, some considered "fanciful", could come from French instructions to mind one's
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of 1612: 'Bring in a quart of Maligo, right true: And looke, you Rogue, that it be Pee and Kew,
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Crystal, David. "The
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Evins, Karlen. "I Didn't Know That" New York: Scribner, 2007, ..78.
245:"P's and Q's, n.". OED Online. June 2019. Oxford University Press.
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in the 18th century who were reminded to pay attention to their
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329:"'Mind your Ps and Qs' - the meaning and origin of this phrase"
197:" possibly the initials of "Prime Quality" (folk etymology).
294:"What is the origin of the injunction "Mind your Ps and Qs""
30:"Ps and Qs" redirects here. For the Lil Uzi Vert song, see
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of the 17th century: bartenders would keep watch over the
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in 1876, in this sense the phrase should be "note your
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20:)
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