One being it originates from old newspaper stensil makers as P's and Q's look the same depending on which side you view the letter.
The other being due to English pubs serving in 'Pint's' and 'Quarts'. When the punters got unruly the barman would yell 'mind your Pints and Quarts', hence P's and Q's.
Which one is the correct one, or is there another explanation?
Answers:
There was an old lady from Britannica. She adopted 37 orphan children from Madagascar during a visit, but when she got home she found out she couldn't afford to feed them. She borrowed some money from the towns candlestick maker and bought 54 Porcupines and 54 Quail. She had the children raise them to sell at the market. When they would go to the market she would keep telling the children to mind their P's and Q's so the herd would stay together, but one of the porcupines died.
Shortened versions of Please & Thank You.
Pease & Kyous!
It comes from the printing industry. When typesetting the worker had to be careful to set a 'p' and a 'q' correctly in a line of print. Remember they were working with tiny letters which were mirror images of the finished copy. That's where it's from.
Use it if you want to politely tell someone to "shut up". P's & Q's stands for Peace & Quiet.
It's your Pleases and thankQues
Nobody's really quite sure where it came from, but it's almost certain it derived, or at least came into common usage, in the late 1700s. Besides the two you mentioned (and a variation of the first where it was young schoolchildren learning how to write), there's also another theory that ties the "P" to "pea cloth" (the rough fabric used in "pea jackets") and the "Q" to "queue" (which meant a ponytail at the time, either that of the fancy wigs worn by courtiers of the day or the real ponytails commonly worn by sailors).
In one version of this story, young nobles were cautioned not to get the powder from their wigs on their "pea cloth" jackets. Another version has old sailors advising newbies to dip their ponytails in tar (a common practice at the time), but to be careful not to get the tar on their "pea cloth" jackets.
Sadly, which of these stories is true has been lost with time.
I always thought it was that lower case p's and lower case q's look very similar when they are in the box used to hold the letters for setting up old lead type. just as you say.
See this link:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.ph...
Originally derived from the phrase originating in late to mid-1612 "To mind one's P's and Q's". In 1745 Francis I purportedly demanded that his troops mind their P's and Q's. In the late 1800's the phrase gained popularity in Victorian households. It may have originated in British pubs as an abbreviation for "mind your pints and quarts." Supposedly this warned the barkeep to serve full measure, mark the customer's tab accurately,
There are a number of theories which sound plausible.
I discount the "please and thank you" theory, the saying has been around far longer than that.
Oxford English Dictionary 2 has a citation from Rowlands' Knave of Harts of 1612.
Try this page
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=...
It's the pints and quarts you were talking about.
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