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Know your P's and Q's
Jun. 2nd, 2010 03:18 pmЧасто попадалось, и почему-то никто не мог мне объяснить, что это значит. Наверняка, я и раньше искала в интернете, но то ли не нашла, то напрочь не запомнила...
In the UK, the phrase means to mind one’s manners or to behave properly. However, in the US, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, it can also mean to be alert, to be on one’s toes, to be on top form.
There are many explanations of the origin of this puzzling expression. The only thing everyone can agree upon is that the idiom was first cited by the Oxford English Dictionary in 1779 with the meaning of watching your step and being polite.
One simple explanation is that it's a childish abbreviation for minding your "pleases" and "thank yous." Considering how often kids are told to "mind your Ps and Qs" with the goal of being more polite, this explanation makes sense.
Two popular theories revolve around the mirror-image quality of the two letters. The phrase was recorded in 1830 as meaning "to learn one's letters." It was aimed at children learning to hand-write the lowercase letters p and q, which are quite similar. Another explanation along the same lines comes from the world of printing. Typesetters used blocks of type that were mirror images of the letters, so it would be easy to mix up lowercase p and q. This origin would give "mind your Ps and Qs" a connotation of being careful and paying sharp attention.
We may leave out of account more fanciful suggestions, such that it was an instruction from a French dancing master to be sure to perform the dance figures pieds and queues accurately, that it was an admonishment to seamen not to soil their navy pea-jackets with their tarred queues (their pigtails), or that it was jocular, or perhaps deadly serious, advice to a barman not to confuse the letters p and q on the tally slate. The barkeeper tracked patrons' drinking totals by marking "P" for pints and "Q" for quarts. Both the barkeeper and the drinker would want to keep careful track of those Ps and Qs so they knew what the final bill would be. Also, the drinker might want to pay attention to how much he drank so as to keep his own behavior under control.
To confuse the matter somewhat, we also have examples of a closely similar expression, P and Q or pee and kew. This was seventeenth-century slang and meant “highest quality”; it was later recorded in dialect (the English Dialect Dictionary reports it in Victorian times from Shropshire and Herefordshire). The Oxford English Dictionary has a citation from Rowlands’ Knave of Harts of 1612: “Bring in a quart of Maligo, right true: And looke, you Rogue, that it be Pee and Kew.” Nobody is really sure what either P or Q stood for. To say they’re the initials of “Prime Quality” seems to be folk etymology, because surely that would make “PQ” rather than “P and Q”.
Investigations by the Oxford English Dictionary in 2007 when revising the entry turned up early examples of the use of Ps and Qs to mean learning the alphabet. The first is in a poem by Charles Churchill, published in 1763:
In the UK, the phrase means to mind one’s manners or to behave properly. However, in the US, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, it can also mean to be alert, to be on one’s toes, to be on top form.
There are many explanations of the origin of this puzzling expression. The only thing everyone can agree upon is that the idiom was first cited by the Oxford English Dictionary in 1779 with the meaning of watching your step and being polite.
One simple explanation is that it's a childish abbreviation for minding your "pleases" and "thank yous." Considering how often kids are told to "mind your Ps and Qs" with the goal of being more polite, this explanation makes sense.
Two popular theories revolve around the mirror-image quality of the two letters. The phrase was recorded in 1830 as meaning "to learn one's letters." It was aimed at children learning to hand-write the lowercase letters p and q, which are quite similar. Another explanation along the same lines comes from the world of printing. Typesetters used blocks of type that were mirror images of the letters, so it would be easy to mix up lowercase p and q. This origin would give "mind your Ps and Qs" a connotation of being careful and paying sharp attention.
We may leave out of account more fanciful suggestions, such that it was an instruction from a French dancing master to be sure to perform the dance figures pieds and queues accurately, that it was an admonishment to seamen not to soil their navy pea-jackets with their tarred queues (their pigtails), or that it was jocular, or perhaps deadly serious, advice to a barman not to confuse the letters p and q on the tally slate. The barkeeper tracked patrons' drinking totals by marking "P" for pints and "Q" for quarts. Both the barkeeper and the drinker would want to keep careful track of those Ps and Qs so they knew what the final bill would be. Also, the drinker might want to pay attention to how much he drank so as to keep his own behavior under control.
To confuse the matter somewhat, we also have examples of a closely similar expression, P and Q or pee and kew. This was seventeenth-century slang and meant “highest quality”; it was later recorded in dialect (the English Dialect Dictionary reports it in Victorian times from Shropshire and Herefordshire). The Oxford English Dictionary has a citation from Rowlands’ Knave of Harts of 1612: “Bring in a quart of Maligo, right true: And looke, you Rogue, that it be Pee and Kew.” Nobody is really sure what either P or Q stood for. To say they’re the initials of “Prime Quality” seems to be folk etymology, because surely that would make “PQ” rather than “P and Q”.
Investigations by the Oxford English Dictionary in 2007 when revising the entry turned up early examples of the use of Ps and Qs to mean learning the alphabet. The first is in a poem by Charles Churchill, published in 1763:
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.
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.
Так что, похоже, что самый скучный вариант - самый верный...
