when people say "be on your P's and Q's" what does the P and the Q stand for?

Question

I know that it means to behave, but do you know what the P and the Q stand for word wise.

Answer 1

Ps and Qs are actually short forms of pints and quarts.

Minding their Ps and Qs was a norm that barmaids used to follow in olden times. During earlier days in the West, specially in Central America, cowboys would often barge into bars hoping that barmaids would not be able to keep count of the numbar of drinks they had had.

The owners, who were aware if this, warned the barmaids saying, "Mind your Ps and Qs."

Answer 2

I don't know if there is only one correct answer for this question. I have heard two explanations for this expression. The first was that in days of old when people actually wrote in longhand using script, the letter p and the letter q were so close in appearance that students were reminded to watch their PS and Q's when they were spelling. The other explanation was that in pubs beer was sold by the pint and quart. The bartender would keep a tally by marking a p when a customer purchased a pint of beer and marking a q when he purchased a quart of beer. When it came time to pay up, the bartender was reminded to mind his PS and Q's. Both are cute stories and I have no idea which is correct. If I were to pick one as being the most likely to be correct, I would pick the first explanation.

Answer 3

From Wikipedia:

To be very careful and/or to behave correctly. It is tied to the fact that the lowercase letters "p" and "q" mirror each other. This is a term from typesetters in the printing industry. In the days of lead type, letters were set individually into a page, and they were placed one by one, upside down. They were pulled from a typecase, in which each letter had a designated space to reside. Problems came when pages were being taken apart and letters put away. If someone was in a hurry or was not paying attention to what he was doing, he could end up with p's and q's in the wrong slots in the typecase, which he wouldn't notice until the next time he was putting together a page, when he would unknowingly pick out the wrong letter. (This could also happen with b's and d's, but as they are more common than q's, typesetters were more accustomed to finding them, and they were mixed up less often.) Hence, pay attention to what you're doing now, so that you don't give yourself problems later on. In England this phrase is also associated with "p'ease" and "'k you" baby talk for 'Please' and 'Thank you', hence "Mind your P's and Q's" is sometimes used to mean "Remember to say 'Please' and 'Thank you.'"

Answer 4

The original saying that I've heard is 'mind your P's and Q's.' This comes from using printing presses. The people who had to set the type for the page to be printed took individual letters and would insert them into a wooden frame. Once full, the page would be complete, and it could be inked and then pressed down on paper in order to print. For it to work out right, however, all the type had to be set in backwards so that the print would come out as the mirror image and look normal. Now a backwards lowercase P looks just like a Q, so if a type-setter was not careful - if he did not mind his P's and Q's - then he'd put the wrong one in by mistake. Thus the phrase just means to be on your best behavior and to watch what you're doing.

Answer 5

It comes from the composition of type in a frame for printing. My Grandfather was a Compositor. I used to watch him putting letters into a wooden frame, this ultimately formed a page of a Newspaper. The lower case p & q were next to each other in his box of metal letters and as a good Compositor didn't need to look at his box (a bit like typing without looking at the keyboard) he would be 'minding his p's and q's.

Answer 6

In the old days books were printed on presses. Lowercase p's and q's look a lot alike and it was easy to get them mixed up. This phrase came from that.

Answer 7

Unfortunately, nobody really knows. The Straight Dope (God of all question answering columns) did a detailed discussion of this topic. You can find it at:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_264.html
If they came to no hard conclusions, I doubt anyone on Ask! Yahoo will.

Answer 8

it refers to 'pints and quarts'.
This was the ter mof expression for pub land lords in England many moons ago.
If there was rowdy behaviour in the pub, then the land lord would say 'mind your pints and quarts', meaning stop being rowdy of you will spill your drinks.

Answer 9

Pints and Quarts. Ask Jeeves, the answer is there.

Answer 10

i heard that it came from old bar talk when they kept tabs and the bartender would say "mind your p's and q's, like mind your pints and quarts. but this was from an old teacher who didn't always make sense.