We’ve been trying to teach Audrey her p’s and q’s (why is it p’s and q’s and not p’s and t’s?) and she’s generally pretty good. On Sunday she was trying to scrounge a biscuit and so we asked her the eternal parental question;
“What do you say?”
and she very correctly asked, ‘May I have a biscuit, please?”
We handed her one and she took a big bite.
“Now what do you say?”
“Delicious!” came the answer.
3 comments:
Watch your P's and q's. Is a printers term. When composing a page from loose single type pieces, the printer holds them in a small hand rack upside down. He can then read off the words before putting them into the chase on the machine. p and q are mirror images and can be confused as can b and d.
So you watch your p's and q's
Dad.
Thanks Dad. I actually looked on Wikipedia after writing the post as I had a sneaking suspicion/memory about the printer origin. Wiki' also cites another couple of origins of p's and q's one of them relating to 17th century taverns where bartenders were encouraged not to confuse pints and quarts, which is probably a reasonable origin as well.
Either way, whether with printers or bartenders I'm not sure what either really has to do with minding one's manners?!
its p's and q's because in ye olde england days, the beer was sold in pints and quarts....when drinkers in the bar got rowdy, the bartender would shout "mind your pints and quarts!!" - of course, this got shortened to "mind your p's and q's!!" over time.
julia ;)
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