mind your p's & q's

[katie787]

Does anyone think its possible the expresion "mind your P’s & q’s could have come from the following?
The Welsh language was developed from the language spoken by the ancient Britions and is decended from the original Aryan stock which is the basis for most European languages. It belongs to the Celtic group of original Aryan which was itself divided into the Q-speaking Celts and the P-speaking Celts. Scotish Gaelic and Manx belong the first (the Q) group: Welsh, Cornish and Breton belong to the P group.

[beowulff]

Doubtful.
More likely, it’s because little kids tend to mix up lower case q’s with lower case p’s.

[Napier]

I’ve heard it was confusing the p and q letters when sorting typeface, made more difficult because they are mirrors of one another and you see the mirror of a letter when you look at the type metal. But don’t know if this is legit.

[KneadToKnow]

The Master speaks

[bibliophage]

Welcome to the SDMB, katie.

A link to the column you’re commenting on is appreciated. Providing one can be as simple as pasting the URL into your post, being sure to leave a blank space on either side of it. Like so: What’s the origin of the expression “mind your P’s and Q’s”? - The Straight Dope

[qazwart]

I take it you’re talking about the column What’s the origin of the expression “mind your P’s and Q’s”?.

Naw, that’s overly complex. The explanation should be rather straight forward and simple. Otherwise, people wouldn’t have understood it when other people used it and started using it themselves. You have to explain why this British people divided themselves into two groups, explain why the two groups are “p” and “q”, and why most people who weren’t Welch were able to understand the saying enough that they not only understood its meaning, but decided they liked it and used it themselves.

Besides, there is a whole boatload of things wrong with your explanation:
[ul]
[li] Welch is not related to most other European languages. Most other European languages stem from Latin or Germanic roots. Welch is a Celtic language and isn’t even in the same sub-group as other Celtic languages. [/li]
[li] Aryans refer to a whole boatload of ancient people in the Northern Indian sub-continent. Now, I haven’t looked at a map recently, so I might be wrong about this: Wales isn’t all that close to Northern India.[/li]
[li] The reference to a single people of Aryan stock is a racist idea from the late 19th century and picked up by the Nazis who somehow though that those Northern Indians somehow had blond hair and blue eyes and now lived in Germany and in the Scandinavian countries. And, those German-Aryans certainly didn’t have a very high opinion of the British “races” and certainly didn’t think anyone on that island could possibly be of Aryan stock. I hope you’re not suggesting you have an affinity to this non-scientific and completely discredited theory.[/li][/ul]

[silvermist]

I read somewhere that it comes from pubs, meaning pints and quarts.

[Wendell_Wagner]

I’m pretty sure it doesn’t come from the fact that there are P-Celtic and Q-Celtic languages. The first reference in print to the expression “mind your p’s and q’s” is from 1779. I believe that the terms “P-Celtic” and “Q-Celtic” didn’t appear until sometime in the nineteenth century.

Incidentally, it’s not typical to refer to Proto-Indo-European as “Aryan” anymore. “Aryan” can refer to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages but not to Proto-Indo-European itself. It’s better not to use the term “Aryan” anymore, since it has unfortunate associations.

[samclem]

@KneadToKnow

The Master speaks

In 1989, cecil was right up there with the thinking of many etymologists. But times change. Database serching of newspaper, Google Book Search and more. All bring forth new discoveries every year, sometime every month.

The draft revision for the 2009 OED says:

. a. to be on one’s P’s and Q’s and variants: to be on one’s best behaviour; to be at one’s best, on top form; (U.S.) to be alert, to be ‘on one’s toes’.

[1602 T. DEKKER Satiro-mastix sig. E2v, Now thou art in thy Pee and Kue, thou hast such a villanous broad backe, that I warrant th’art able to beare away any mans iestes in England.] 1607 T. DEKKER & J. WEBSTER West-ward Hoe II. i. sig. B4v, At her p. and q. neither Marchantes Daughter, Aldermans Wife, young countrey Gentlewoman, nor Courtiers Mistris, can match her. 1786 A. HUGHES Zoriada I. 158 Who so proper to bring him to his p’s and q’s as the waiting woman of her he loves. 1815 Apollo’s Choice II. ii, in New Brit. Theatre IV. 208, I must be on my P’s and Q’s here, or I shall get my neck into a halter. 1829 W. DIMOND Brother & Sister II. i. 27 Ay, he was the crown of the jestso grand and ceremoniousall upon his P’s and Q’s. 1893 W. A. SHEE My Contemporaries vi. 149 In a well-dressed crowd you are in your p’s and q’s. 1941 in G. P. Rawick Amer. Slave (1972) XIX. II. 129 This put me on my p’s and q’s. You know how a young fellow is when he is about to lose something. He gets more careful.

.

Further, with regards to the etymology, OED says,

Origin unknown.
The variant p. and q. (with points) in quot. 1607 at sense 1a suggests that the expression may perhaps have originated as a graphic abbreviation or was perceived as such at an early stage.
A common suggestion the phrase referred originally to the difficulty which a child beginning to read has in distinguishing the lower case letters p and q (or alternatively, the difficulty encountered by a typesetter, who will have to recognize these letters back to front); compare e.g. quot. 1763 at sense 3. However, the chronology of the senses would argue against this, and no such connotation is evident in the earliest quotations.
Another suggestion is that the expression refers to a sailor’s pea-coat and queue (tarred pig-tail), with the phrases in sense 1b referring originally to soiling the coat with the pigtail. The only indication of a connection with clothing is in sense 1a, where pee in quot. 1602 could conceivably refer to a sailor’s pea-coat (see PEE n.1), though QUEUE n. 4 is first attested significantly later, and the context in the quot. is not remotely nautical.
The expression is unlikely to be a shortening of pleases and thank yous, since this is apparently not attested independently as a phrase before the 20th cent.
There is no evidence to support a suggestion that expression originates in instructions for dance figures called in French pied and queue. Neither French word is attested in this sense.
The suggestion that sense 1b referred originally to a landlord confusing pints and quarts (of beer) on a customer’s account can be neither substantiated nor dismissed (compare PINT n., QUART n.1).
In sense 2 sometimes interpreted as showing the initial letters of prime quality (see quot. 1876 at sense 2), although this would not account for the presence of the conjunction and, unless it were due to analogy with the expression at sense 1a.]

It gets more and more complicated all the time.

[KneadToKnow]

Sounds like it’s time for Cecil or the SAB to update that one.

[DSYoungEsq]

Reported this thread; she started the same thing in Comments on Cecil’s Columns, and it should be merged there.

[samclem]

@DSYoungEsq

Reported this thread; she started the same thing in Comments on Cecil’s Columns, and it should be merged there.

Hopefully that’s what I just did. So, if the continuity in the thread seems strange, I merged the two threads, deleting her/his duplicate post. Carry on.

samclem Moderator, General Questions

[Powers]

@samclem

It gets more and more complicated all the time.

Indeed; what strikes me about the OED’s examples is that they all use a prepositional form: [at/in/upon/on] [his/her/your] [pee/p./p’s] and [kue/q./q’s]. That is different from the modern usage, in which we are merely admonished to mind them, rather than told to be at or in or on them.

So it seems that the P and Q originally referred to some sort of state or location, possibly figurative, rather than objects or ideas.
Powers &8^]

[samclem]

I’m really sorry. I only submitted part one. Here’s the rest. Truly interesting.

b.** to mind (also watch) one’s P’s and Q’s**: to be careful or particular in one’s words or behaviour; to mind one’s manners.

1756 Life & Mem. Mr. E. T. Bates 83 Mind your P’s and your Q’s and always travel in the Autumn. 1776 T. FRANCKLIN Contract I. i. 14, I hear the rustling of silks, mind your p’s and q’s, Sir, don’t forget your sighs and raptures now for heaven’s sake. 1792 T. HOLCROFT Anna St. Ives III. li. 131 So do you tell her all a that I bid ee, and a mind your pees and cues. ?1800 W. B. RHODES Bombastes Furioso iv. 30 My sword I well can use So mind your P’s and Q’s. 1866 G. MACDONALD Ann. Quiet Neighb. (1878) x. 181 Well, I thought it wasn’t a time to mind ones peas and cues exactly. 1893 W. S. GILBERT Utopia (Limited) I, He minds his P’s and Q’s,And keeps himself respectable. 1923 Reno (Nevada) Evening Gaz. 15 Oct. 7/2 A representative in congress must watch his political Ps and Qs in the pursuit of his official duties. 1969 A. BENNETT Forty Years On in Forty Years On & Other Plays (1991) i. 61 You just mind your p’s and q’s, or I shall write and tell them about your gas-mask. 2000 Denver Post (Nexis) 30 Aug. F1 When it comes to navigating social settings, you always watch your p’s and q’s.

** 2. to be P and Q**: to be of the highest quality. Obs. rare (Eng. regional (midl.) in later use).

1612 S. ROWLANDS Knaue of Harts (Hunterian Club) 20 Bring in a quart of Maligo, right true: And looke, you Rogue, that it be Pee and Kew. 1876 T. M. BOUND Hereford. & Shropsh. Provinc. in Eng. Dial. Dict. at P, To be P and Q, to be of prime quality.

3. one’s P’s and Q’s: one’s alphabet, one’s ‘A.B.C.’; (in extended use) knowledge or judgement, ‘one’s way about’. Also: good manners, etiquette (cf. sense 1).
   Connotations of good manners and correct behaviour are often present even when they are not explicitly referred to.

1763 C. CHURCHILL Poems IV. 351 On all occasions next the chair He stands for service of the Mayor, And to instruct him how to use His A’s and B’s, and P’s and Q’s. ?1804 A. PASQUIN Hamiltoniad ii. 45 I’d…Watch, when he wrote of Diplomatic news; And make him careless of his P’s and Q’s. 1825 J. C. BRAINARD Poems (1849) 143 Shrewd and inquisitive; they know their P’s And Q’s. They know to earn, and get, and save. 1885 Lake Shore (Dunkirk, N.Y.) Observer (Electronic text) 4 Aug., Mamma is a woman who years ago learned her ps and qs, and she soon saw the student was stealing away her daughter’s heart. 1901 A. DOBSON Carmina Votiva 53 Maids of honour for his muse Quite forgot their ‘P’s’ and ‘Q’s’. 1925 Lima (Ohio) News 20 Sept. 21/4 Mr Lester…knows his social p’s and q’s. 1999 Evening Standard (Nexis) 4 May 12 Just to make sure the staff don’t forget their ps and qs, Niki Lazarides will return soon to conduct a top-up course.

[Peter_Morris]

@bibliophage

Welcome to the SDMB, katie.

A link to the column you’re commenting on is appreciated.

To be fair to her, she posted the question in GQ, but it was moved. It’s likely that she didn’t see the column and wasn’t commenting on it.

edit - my mistake, she posted it twice.

[John_W.Kennedy]

The P/Q split applies to more than Celtic. The Italic languages (Latin is the only one known to non-specialists, but Latin was originally only one of a family) have it, and it can be observed in IE as a whole, where Latin Q can correspond to Greek P.

[Wendell_Wagner]

True, but in any case, it’s a nineteenth century term (since it’s a distinction that wasn’t made until after the idea of Indo-European languages was created), so it couldn’t have been the origin of the term “mind your p’s and q’s.”

[ZenBeam]

[1602 T. DEKKER Satiro-mastix sig. E2v, Now thou art in thy Pee and Kue, thou hast such a villanous broad backe, …

It seems odd to me that here it’s written out as “Pee” and “Kue”. Is that normal for that time?

[KneadToKnow]

@ZenBeam

It seems odd to me that here it’s written out as “Pee” and “Kue”. Is that normal for that time?

Nothing was normal for that time. Typography was still only just beginning to standardize spelling and punctuation in English at the time.

[Uncertain]

@qazwart

[li] Welch is not related to most other European languages. Most other European languages stem from Latin or Germanic roots. Welch is a Celtic language and isn’t even in the same sub-group as other Celtic languages. [/li]

Welsh is indeed related to most other European languages. Celtic is one branch of the Indo-European language family. Most European languages are Indo-European, coming from several different branches: Celtic, Italic, Greek, Germanic, Albanian, Slavic, and Baltic (that may not be complete, and other Indo-European families are spoken outside of Europe). The only major non-Indo-European languages in Europe are, I believe, Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, and Basque. In pre-Roman times, Celtic languages were spoken over much of Western Europe.

[li] Aryans refer to a whole boatload of ancient people in the Northern Indian sub-continent. Now, I haven’t looked at a map recently, so I might be wrong about this: Wales isn’t all that close to Northern India.[/li]

Aryan is an obsolete term for (proto)-Indo-European. The India connection has to do with the Indo- part.