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Originally Posted by dandysmom
I've heard an alternate story that referred to typesetters when it was done manually... to be sure they didn't confuse the two.
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Found this - take your pick!|!
A second origin story comes from early printing presses. Printers placed individual letters on a typeset to print a page of text. The letters were reversed, making it easy to mistake lowercase p's and q's in setting the type. A reminder to stay watchful of the details could have come from this time as well.[1] In a similar setting, this expression has been attributed as an adage for teaching children to spell.[2]
Other origin stories, some considered "fanciful",[2] could come from French instructions to mind one's pieds (feet) and queues (wigs) while dancing. However, there is no French translation for this expression.[3] Another origin could be from sailors in the eighteenth century who were reminded to pay attention to their pea (coats) and queue (wigs).[3]
A possible origin or at least similar expression comes from seventeenth-century slang. "P and Q" meant "prime quality" or "highest quality". It has also been seen as "pee and kew", though it is unclear what either literally stand for. It seems unlikely that the phrase "P and Q" stood for "prime quality", because that does not explain the presence of the word "and".[2]
It is also possible that the expression refers to the careful reading of Medieval Latin texts: the letters "p" and "q" had various abbreviation symbols for different shortened words. For example, "q" with a dot over it was the abbreviation for "quod" while "p" with a line through the tail of the letter was the symbol for "per". Minding that these abbreviations were interpreted accurately (i.e. that one read "per" as opposed to "post" or "pro") would ensure the correct reading of the text.
Another explanation suggests that "Ps and Qs" is short for "pleases" and "thank-yous", the latter of which contains a sound similar to the pronunciation of the name of the letter "Q".[2] This phrase would be used by parents to educate their children to not forget to use those polite words when they speak to people. Possibly, it meant "please" and "excuse me." Young children would pronounce them as Ps and Qs.
