Answers:
The most plausible explanation is the one given in the latest
edition of Collins English Dictionary: an alteration of "Mind
your 'please's and 'thank you's".
Pints & Quarts & advice for typesetters & schoolchildren are also popular theories...
http://geekswithblogs.net/mtreadwell/arc...
http://www.yaelf.com/auefaq/mifmindyourp...
http://www.idiomsite.com/psandqs.htm...
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/24800...
http://www.word-detective.com/back-f.htm...
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_...
no idea. xD
Way back when printing was set by hand, the p and the q looked so similar that the typesetters frequently put the wrong one in there.
Look: pq they are the same but backwards.
I think it originated in England. Bar tenders would tell drunks to 'mind their pints and quarts' when they got rowdy.
This is my answer to the same question a short time ago:
According to my most reliable source, the pub theory (watch the host when he chalks up the Pints and Quarts you have drunk on credit, so you won't be overcharged) is the one most often cited, but there is no evidence that it is actually the source of the expression. Most likely, it comes from schoolrooms, when teachers told their students to make sure they understood which way around a "p" and a "q" (which look just alike, but face in opposite directions) would be. So, when kids learned to write, they were told to mind their Ps and Qs because it was easy to get them confused.
A similar theory I have read about is that it came from typesetting, back in the days when typesetters had to put each individual letter in a rack to set type. Because the letters appeared backwards when they were set (so they would print right side around, like a mirror image), it was really easy to confuse the lower case p and q because they were mirror images of each other. So, typesetting masters would tell their apprentices to mind their Ps and Qs, meaning not to get their lower-case p and q mixed up.
Idk
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