what does it mean?

Question

when people say mind ur q's and p's, what is your q's and p's

Answer 1

This phrase means to be careful. It originates from back when people used moveable type presses by hand. When the typesetters were putting the letters down, it was easy to confuse the p and the q because all of the letters were backwards in order to make a print. Thus, the p's looked like q's and vice-versa. Thus, it was a warning to be careful, which has lasted until present-day, although it is no loger specifically about print-making.

Answer 2

It originated in British pubs as an abbreviation for "mind your pints and quarts." Supposedly this warned the barkeep to serve full measure, mark the customer's tab accurately, etc.

- It meant "mind your pea (jacket) and queue." Queues (pigtails) were often powdered, and wifeypoo was telling hubby to keep the cruddy kid stuff off his collar. An even dumber variation of this involves "pieds," French for "feet," and says minding your p's and q's means combing your hair and polishing your shoes, or something like that.

- P and q stands for "prime quality." According to the Oxford English Dictionary, to be P and Q was a regional expression meaning top quality. It first shows up in a bit of doggerel from 1612: "Bring in a quart of Maligo, right true: And looke, you Rogue, that it be Pee and Kew."

The simplest explanation is that the expression refers to the difficulty kids have distinguishing lower-case p and q, mirror images of each other. Mind your you-know-whats was thus a teacher's admonition to students. Plausible? Yes. Sexy? No. Such is the fate of a slave to facts.

"On the qt," meaning on the sly, secret, is easier. Most likely it's an abbreviation of "quiet."

Answer 3

The most convincing explanation of this idiom I've heard is that it comes
from the early days of printing, when movable type was positioned for
printing. This process was done upside-down - a technique not impossible to
get used to after some time. However, the lowercase letters p and q were
hard to distinguish, since in most designs they were mirror images of each
other. Hence" mind your P's and Q's!", a phrase I was told was shouted at
young children working in these print shops.

Answer 4

first off, it's mind your ps and qs. it is an old british pub term, meaning mind your pints and quarts, as in be careful how much your drinking, in olden times, bartenders would keep a tab on who drank how much (so they know how much to charge when the patron leaves) by writing their name on a blackboard and beside their name the number of ps and/or qs they had drunk...it was also an admonition for patrons to keep a track of their own tab as a check on the bartender's since over the course of the night, with many editions to the blackboard, the little tail on the q would inevitably get rubbed off and ps and qs could get mixed up resulting in a patron getting overcharged

Answer 5

It means you should mind your manners and be polite. It is short for Please's and Thankyou's.

The fact is nobody knows for sure where this originated, there are a lot of possible origins. In my experience it is most commonly used to remind a child to be polite and say please and thankyou. The website below gives a lot of explanations. (I favour the Collin's dictionary definition).

Answer 6

Pints and quarts. in the old days people used to go into pubs and when they get rowdy they would throw their drinks around, so the saying arose, "mind your Pints and Quarts"

Answer 7

Exactly that: p's and q's. See how similar the lower case letters look? You have to pay attention to be sure you've written - or typed - the right letter. Mind your p's and q's! :)

Answer 8

It means that you shouldn't get to things that are the same mixed up! Because p's and q's lookm the same in a way!

Answer 9

it means mind your own business

Answer 10

it means be sure to cross your t's and dot your i's.