June 23, 2000

p's and q's

How many times did your Mother say, "...mind your P's & Q's"? Just what was she asking [you] to do? I always understood it to mean "Behave", but there are no p's or q's in that word. Maybe, just maybe, I'm still not "Minding my P's & Q's."

Your instincts are behaving. Various sources define p's and q's as 'manners; behavior; conduct'; and define minding them as watching your step, being careful or polite. The earliest citation recorded for this use in the OED (1779), "You must mind your P's and Q's with him, I can tell you," expressed the need for careful behavior in the face of potential criticism ...or worse.

Where the phrase comes from is another matter. Frankly, it would be difficult to find another English expression that has spawned more putative origins than this one--from pronunciations and puns through pubs, printing, and pedagogy. Here are some samples, each offered as if true:

Pronunciations and puns: (1) The term, reduced to "peas and kyous," comes from p(l)eas(es) and (than)k yous (which would establish a pretty direct connection to manners). (2) In the court of Louis XIV, dancing masters cautioned fledgling courtiers to mind their pieds (their dancing feet) and queues (their full wigs--the so-called "periwigs" or long "perruques" worn by fashionable men, sometimes including an even longer braided strand hanging down the back and tied with a ribbon). What with all that bobbing and curtsying, it would have been awkward if the courtiers' wigs fell off or they tripped on their hair. (3) Attested in an earlier citation (1602), "Now thou art in thy pee and cue," the references are to a fashionable "pea coat" and probably again to a "queue."

Pubs: A cumulative tally of bills for befuddled customers, showing how many pints and quarts they had each imbibed, was kept on a board near the bar, using these letters as abbreviations. Barkeepers would be warned not to confuse the more expensive "Q" with the piddling "P." Even with no intentional mistake, a hastily scrawled circle with a tail pointing vaguely downward from its bottom could wind up looking ambiguous.

Printing: Early printers had to deal with text as a mirror image. Try it with lower-case p's and q's and you'll see why apprentices would have been apprised of the risk of confusion. The question is: why wasn't that confusion attributed as easily to b's and d's?

Pedagogy: The poor 5- and 6-year-olds learning to read and write, having spent their little lives learning that objects remain constant no matter how you turn them around, now find that p's and q's are not like cups with handles, which always remain cups with handles; instead these letters switch identities when the "handle" moves from left to right. Once more, however, why not b's and d's?

Each theory has its own appeal. Etymologists have been unwilling to commit more than half-heartedly to any one of them, although there is some leaning toward the pedagogical possibility. If the phrase does come from pubs, printing, or pedagogy, I can only speculate about the drift in meaning from an admonition to distinguish letters carefully and meticulously to an admonition to behave. Perhaps when mind your p's and q's became a parent-to-child cliche, it--like just about any other parental warning (from "Please wash your hands first." to "Be careful crossing the street!")--was bound to be interpreted simplistically by young children as the more general "Behave! Be good!" Ask any mother or father.

Enid