mind your p's and q's
| 17:39 Dec 30, 2022 |
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| English language (monolingual) [PRO] Idioms / Maxims / Sayings / dictionary of idioms | |||||||
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| 4 | Be on your best behaviour or mind your manners |
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| Discussion entries: 7 | |
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Answers
19 hrs confidence: 
Be on your best behaviour or mind your manners Explanation: "Ps and Qs" redirects here. For the Lil Uzi Vert song, see Lil Uzi Vert vs. the World. For the Kano song, see Home Sweet Home (Kano album). Mind your Ps and Qs is an English language expression meaning "mind your manners", "mind your language", "be on your best behaviour", "watch what you're doing". 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 Notes and Queries dated 1851, is a literal interpretation of the saying, regarding possible confusion between the lowercase letters p and q in schoolwork or typesetting.[1] This is mentioned in the 3rd edition Oxford English Dictionary, but the OED considers the explanation unlikely since "the chronology of the senses would argue against this, and no such connotation is evident in the earliest quotations" and says that the origin of the expression is unknown.[2] Movable type p's and q's could be easily mistaken, especially as they are mirror-reversed from the printed result. According to Michael Quinion, "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."[3] 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 Educational Notes and Queries in 1876, in this sense the phrase should be "note your p's and q's" (lowercase), because the distinction of majuscule P and Q does not pose a problem.[4] 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 pubs and taverns of the 17th century: bartenders would keep watch over the pints and quarts consumed by the patrons, telling them to "mind their Ps and Qs".[5] This may also have been a reminder to bartenders not to confuse the two units, written as "p" and "q" on the tally slate.[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_your_Ps_and_Qs https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ps-and-qs/  -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 19 ώρες (2022-12-31 13:01:11 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- https://dictionaryblog.cambridge.org/2012/04/17/mind-your-ps... -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 23 ώρες (2022-12-31 16:59:29 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- What does P's and Q's mean slang? The English idiom “mind your p's and q's” means to pay attention to the details of etiquette. Another way to say “mind your p's and q's” is to say “mind your manners!” or “be careful about the details!” https://unclegoose.com/blogs/blog/what-does-it-mean-to-mind-... |
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