SCSimmons wrote : You don’t have to believe them just because they’re snopes.com, of course. But read the details of their research before you judge! It’s quite clear that (a) the rhyme dates from the 19th century, not the 12th or 13th, and (b) the ‘plague’ interpretation is a modern invention. If you don’t agree, then read the details of their argument at http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/rosie.htm and tell us what they got wrong-but don’t just say that you’ve heard a lot of people say they disagree and therefore you don’t trust the Mikkelsons’ research.
hey I was merely saying that a) the words are different here and b) that if it is a false legend, it is one repeated by an awful lot of serious historians over hereIf I ever get a spare hour I will try and research it.
And a quart is a multiple thereof – four half pints = one quart – so apparently the Weights and Measures act wouldn’t rule out the “q”.
I’m not accepting the "ps and qs pub connection, merely pointing out that the wording of the Weights and Measures Act should not be taken as evidence against it.
And a quart is a multiple thereof – four half pints = one quart – so apparently the Weights and Measures act wouldn’t rule out the “q”.
I’m not accepting the ps and qs to pub connection, merely pointing out that the wording of the Weights and Measures Act should not be taken as evidence against it.
My only qualm with the Snopes reasoning is that it effectively says (and I madmit that I have scan read it, cos I’m about to leave) is that it says that just because this theory is new, it CAN’T be true. Most theories are new when they come out, and yet are accepted as true. Many people have had explanations for things for centuries and it is only modern science that has ‘proved’ them wrong…
I willingly accept correction of my interpretation!
I don’t know why you people say that you can’t get beer by the quart in pubs. You just don’t go to the right ones. Where I live, in Canada, at several bars you can order a ‘schooner’ which contains twice as much beer as a pint glass, ie one quart. Also, when I have been to Germany I have consumed beer from one litre glasses, which I believe is also roughly a quart.
That said, there is also the theory of the p’s and q’s that my mother told me, which is to mind your pleases and thanKYOUS, a bit of a stretch I admit, but does represent the current connotation of the phrase.
You’re using a slippery definition of “theory” which doesn’t apply to etymology, which differs from scientific principles. Etymology looks for instances of the use of a phrase. If a clear line can be connected between the earliest use and the origin, then there is a connection.
In the case of “Ring Around the Rosie,” the rhyme developed centuries after the plague was over. Children don’t make up rhymes based on events that happened in their great great granparent’s days. If the rhyme had dated back to the plague, there would have been instances of it at the time of the plague.
The gap between the event and the first known instances of the rhyme is just too great for there to be a connection.
As for “theories” of etymology – there have been dozens of urban legends about the “origin” of words. They usually have one important thing in common – the lack of a single citation of an original source. The lack of an original source is a dead giveaway that the etymology is phoney.
I’ve enjoyed reading the response a great deal. These last few seem to be the nitty-gritty.
Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.
The state with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska
The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400
The average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000
Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn’t added until 5 years later.
#18 was addressed partially, and seems to be easy enough to verify. Tomorrow, unless I check here and someone has beaten me to it, I aim to look for a site on the signing of the DoI.
The other ones are tricker for me. I don’t own a dog and I don’t know where to look on the others. Estimates based on facts would satisify me very well for #8 and #9. If nothing else I’ll check out a bag of dog food next time I’m in a store and call a vet to find out what the shots cost.
The trivia in the original post is very common online, both in email and on websites. That’s what made searching for verification difficult… typing in words from it brought up links to at least a dozen sites with the same bad information. It really ticked me off. I’m glad I asked y’all.
I don’t know where I came up with this, so I can’t cite. If anyone else can, thanks. Or if they can provide a cite that disproves it, thanks also. (I wouldn’t want to be accused to contributing to ignorance!)
But as far as “minding P’s and Q’s”, I was under the impression that it was from the early days of typesetting. Each set of letters was kept in their own box, the entire thing consisting of a huge frame subdivided into boxes. Of course, the upper case letters had their own frame and the lower case letters had their own frame. And they were set up alphabetically.
Part of the duties of an apprentice printer would be to put the type back in its proper box at the end of the job. But the letters on the slugs appear backward, in order to print properly. And the p’s and q’s would, of course, be right next to each other. pq. How easy it would be for someone not used to mentally flipping the letters to misread them and put the p’s in with the q’s, and vice versa. Hence, the printer would always be telling his assistant to “mind your p’s and q’s.”
Like I said, I have absolutely no verification for this. It seems extremely logical to me, though. Debunk away.
It seems to be from teaching children to write. “Mind your p’s and q’s” sounds like something a teacher would say, since it uses “mind” as an imperative verb (e.g., mind your manners).
I was always taught that “mind your p’s and q’s” originated in printing. Lower case p’s and q’s can be confused for one another because a piece of movable type is a mirror-image of how the letter appears once printed so when your pulling type out of the drawer (a California job case, perhaps ) a p looks like a q and vice-versa. Same goes for d’s and b’s and other pairs.
That this is what the expression is based on has always made a lot of sense to me. It would make sense–I can just hear old journeymen typesetters haranguing their apprentices to “Mind your p’s and q’s!!”
It seems odd to me that this isn’t even mentioned in the Wikipedia article. I thought this explanation was “known” (even if they are wrong and it isn’t actually where the aphorism came from) by more than a few peeps.
ETA– this is such an old thread that I didn’t read all the way through (mostly earliest and latest comments) so didn’t see that DAVEW0071, way back in November 2001, mentioned the printing thing.
…and, oooh his post is much better than mine with the details, like the p’s and q’s being right next to each other in the type drawer!
“Mind your Ps and Qs is an English language expression meaning “mind your manners”, “mind your language”, “be on your best behaviour”, or “watch what you’re doing.”“
That is what the phrase means. Any attempt at giving an origin should explain how it came to mean that.
A printer or a child might confuse the letters p and q. But how could telling them not to make the mistake come to mean “Be polite”? Likewise, an instruction not to confuse pints and quarts.
There are two explanations that appeal to me. Neither is accepted by etymologists as being proved true.
The first is that it’s a corruption of “please and thank you”
The second, I’ve seen a quote from a guide to correct behaviour for young clerks, stating the exact phrase that they should dress in “pea and queue” these being a jacket and a hairstyle that were fashionable at the time.
I would just say, that’s what it has come to mean. (When I used to hear it as a child, it seemed like it meant something like “be correct in your behavior” which could refer to politeness or not making a mistake, or just doing some task the right way.) If it is now used mostly about politeness, that could represent a shift in meaning, which often happens to expressions and does not necessarily dictate the original source of the saying. If the printing origin story were correct (note the subjunctive, I’m not saying it is or isn’t) the meaning could easily have spread to other activities as non-printers adopted it.
Pea coats would not have been worn by a clerk. They are heavy wool coats worn by sailors and such. I doubt they were ever fashionable. And queue hairstyles were for Chinese men. Bald in front and shoulder length hair in back.
Quite possibly true. I’m going from memory, and don’t have the reference book to hand. But it quoted the text directly from a named and dated source, and contained the exact phrase “pea and queue”. And it pre-dates any known reference to “p’s and q’s”
Queues were worn by sailors. Also known as pigtails.
And, note, I’m not saying it’s the true origin. The dictionary says it isn’t certain. Just that it makes more sense to me personally than most of the others.
The Oxford English Dictionary argues against the “pea and queue” origin because the phrase, in the form “at her p. and q. [none] can match her”, appears in print in 1607, but the first use of “queue” as a hairstyle is well over 100 years later.
) a p looks like a q and vice-versa. Same goes for d’s and b’s and other pairs.