# mind your p's & q's

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mind-your-ps-qs/505471>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [August 5, 2009, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mind-your-ps-qs/505471 "2009-08-05T21:34:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mind-your-ps-qs/505471/21 "2009-08-10T16:55:16Z")

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> [@Uncertain](#):
>
> 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.

One might add that Welsh does indeed share a subdivision (Brythonic) of Celtic, including Breton (living), Cornish (dead, but with an active revival movement), and Cumbrian (really most sincerely dead), all descended from ancient British.

> [@](#):
>
> _Aryan_ is an obsolete term for (proto)-Indo-European. The India connection has to do with the _Indo-_ part.

While that is true, it is also true that the word “Aryan” has a very complicated history, having meant at various times, “Iranian”, “North Indian”, and “Indo-Iranian”, as well as “Indo-European” and “Nazi ideal”.

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**Author:** ![Sparky812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Sparky812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky812)\
**Post date:** [August 13, 2009, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mind-your-ps-qs/505471/22 "2009-08-13T03:20:57Z")

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As a boy, my great-grandmother would always warn me about “minding my Ps and Qs”. When I asked she explained it stood for **P** leases and Thank **Q** s. I am in no means suggesting this is the origin of the term but the memory popped into my head on reading the OP.🙂

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