2006-09-09 03:27:55 · 7 answers · asked by Serene Queen 1 in Society & Culture ➔ Other - Society & Culture
There are various proposed explanations of this. Amongst the most plausible are the notion that ale used to be ordered in either pints or quarts and you needed to be careful which you were given. The fact that typesetters needed to be careful when setting type because the 'p's and 'q's looked similar seems a better explanation. A third is 'mind your pleases and thankyous'. This has the merit of being closer to the meaning of the phrase although the thankyous = thank 'q's stretches the imagination somewhat.
2006-09-09 03:31:44 · answer #1 · answered by Barkley Hound 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
MINDING YOUR Ps & Qs
Ale was served at local taverns out of a "tankard" ... you were charged by the angle of your elbow ... half-way up... you drank a pint, all the way up... you drank a quart. Since the Quart cost so much more than the Pint, you were warned to "Mind your Ps & Qs"
Comment from Bill Kling: "Minding one's p's and q's" is a typesetter's admonition. When you handle individual character type slugs, you need to be careful of how you store and retrieve the p's and q's, because they look so much alike.
Sally says: It does stand for "Mind your Pints and Quarts," a saying that came into existence long before any typesetters could be concerned about mistaking Ps and Qs on a typewriter! The expression was intended for people to mind how many Pints and Quarts they drank, or in other words, to behave!
Jon wrote: I've always been taught that it's just a shorthand way of saying 'mind your pleases and thank yous' -- something you tell your kids when they go off to spend the night at a friend's house so that they will be polite. Maybe this is a colloquial definition, because the pints and quarts thing sounds more like a general 'take care' kind of warning.
Jim added: Some 20 years ago I was visiting Williamsburg, VA. Specifically I was in Raleigh's Tavern. The derivation of 'minding your P(int)s and Q(uart)s' was deemed to have come from the necessity of the 'barkeep' to keep accurate disbursement records of alcohol for the purpose of paying the tax on alcohol. Don't know if they are still telling that version.
William wrote: I'd heard this stood for Price and Quality, two things that are worth minding.
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. This admonished you to keep track of how much you had to drink so that the barkeep couldn't add a few pints to your tab and charge you for something you hadn't consumed. I was told to pay for each drink as I got them to avoid this problem while on a business trip to Spain in the 70's. Tourists were known to wind up in jail over bar tab squabbles.
Another obscure explanation: It came from the hobby of coin collecting. Old coins had to treated very carefully so as not to harm them. To clean a coin expertly was called "frazing". The coin had to be immersed in a liquid named "pease", then it was bathed in another liquid known as "kyuse". It was essential to get the order of these two baths correct Hence: "Be sure to mind your pease and kyuse" -- to fraze a coin.
2006-09-09 03:54:42 · answer #2 · answered by dlcarnall 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It does originate in England, it is mind your "pints" and "quarts", but a little different than what most people are saying here. Sailors would come in and run tabs until they got paid. The bartender would have a chalk board with a column for name, another column for pints (a "P") and a column for quarts (a "Q"). Bartenders were known for "padding" the numbers once the sailor had a few too many, sometimes adding a tick mark to the "Q" column instead of the "P" column - or adding multiple ticks to the "P" column for a single pint, hence, Mind your P's and Q's. I haven't heard the "Be on your p's and q's" variation, but I'm positive of it's origin.
2006-09-09 04:07:39 · answer #3 · answered by one_lost_pup 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It is an expression born in English pubs when drinks were served in pints and quarts, if a fight broke out patrons were advised to mind their p's and q's
2006-09-09 03:35:02 · answer #4 · answered by snoop_dougie_doug04 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It does mean pints and quarts originating from England. But when I was younger I was always told to mind my P's and Q's as in pleases and thank you's.
2006-09-09 03:47:08 · answer #5 · answered by Emma 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
"Mind your P's and Q's". P = pints. Q = quarts. Goes back to England when you had to watch how much and what the bartender put in your drink.
2006-09-09 03:30:17 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
i think the expression is mind your p's and q's.
because when they are lower case they are easy to get confused.
2006-09-09 03:30:21 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋