A Manchester punch-house offered bowls called P and Q. Was this the birthplace of an instruction to behave yourself?

Chambers wondered about the connection. Following his question leads to a saying with several persuasive explanations — and remarkably little certainty.

THE SHORT ANSWER

There is no demonstrated link between drinking punch and “mind your P’s and Q’s”. The Book of Days reports P and Q as names for differently priced bowls, but offers the connection as speculation. The instruction itself is recorded in 1756. References to letters give the reading-and-writing explanation some support, although they do not settle its origin. Pints and quarts, printers’ type and “please” and “thank you” supply other familiar stories. Knowing what the saying means is much easier than knowing where it began.

WHAT WE KNOW

The modern instruction appears in The Life and Memoirs of Mr. Ephraim Tristram Bates, published in 1756, alongside advice about travelling in autumn.

Earlier “P and Q” expressions also exist. Pascal Tréguer’s survey identifies examples in early seventeenth-century drama and a 1612 drinking poem. Their meanings and relationship to the later instruction are uncertain. Matching letters alone cannot establish a continuous history.

For this investigation, that distinction matters. We need evidence for an expression, its meaning and its transmission — not simply an earlier P beside an earlier Q.

HOW IT BECAME A HABIT

By 1776, Thomas Francklin’s play The Contract uses the instruction in a comic courtship scene. It is recognisably advice about how to behave.

The surviving examples show the saying in use; they do not reveal the moment someone invented it. Nor do they establish a route from a particular occupation or drinking-house into general conversation.

A familiar warning can survive perfectly well after its original reference has become obscure.

THE PUNCH-HOUSE THEORY

The Book of Days describes John Shaw’s Manchester punch-house. A shilling bowl was called a P; a sixpenny bowl a Q.

The account says the origin of those names was unknown, then asks whether they were connected with the saying.

That is a historical conjecture, not testimony that Shaw or his customers coined the instruction. Even if the bowl names are accepted, the missing link remains: evidence that people used the saying because of them.

WHAT THE EVIDENCE ACTUALLY SAYS

The evidence label is UNKNOWN.

Learning letters has a stronger documentary foothold. Michael Quinion points to Charles Churchill’s 1763 poem The Ghost, which groups P’s and Q’s with A’s and B’s. That establishes an alphabet connection in that passage. Since the 1756 instruction is earlier, the poem alone cannot prove how it originated.

The printer’s version draws on the resemblance between lower-case p and q. Anatoly Liberman’s discussion for Oxford University Press nevertheless stresses the absence of a secure explanation. A practical difficulty in a workshop is not, by itself, evidence that the workshop supplied an idiom.

The pints-and-quarts story is separate from Chambers’s punch suggestion. It imagines letters used to record customers’ drink accounts. The “pleases and thank-yous” explanation instead connects the letters with politeness. Quinion discusses both among the competing proposals; neither should be presented as established history.

The theories also need different kinds of proof. A dated tavern account could establish a bookkeeping practice. An early instruction to an apprentice could establish occupational use. To establish an origin, either would still need a convincing relationship to the wider saying.

DIFFERENT ELSEWHERE

Quinion notes that American usage can also emphasise alertness or being on top form, alongside the British association with good manners.

That is a difference in meaning, rather than evidence for a separate American invention.

WHY IT STUCK

As an instruction, the saying needs very little explanation. Its speaker supplies the context: be careful, behave properly, watch yourself.

Its unexplained letters also make it a small mystery. Punch bowls and printing shops offer satisfying pictures, which helps explain their appeal. But a picture that makes an expression memorable need not explain its birth.

Chambers left us a question. The evidence still gives us reason to keep the question mark.

RELATED CURIOSITIES

Why Do We Say “Sent to Coventry”?

Who Was Hobson — and Why Didn’t He Give You a Choice?

Why Do We Call Spending Money “Pin Money”?

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

Robert Chambers, The Book of Days, January 30: John Shaw’s punch-house and the speculative P-and-Q connection.

https://thebookofdays.com/months/jan/30.htm

Pascal Tréguer, Word Histories: “The multiple meanings and origins of ‘P’s and Q’s’” — early examples and their interpretive difficulties.

https://wordhistories.net/2016/06/21/origins-of-ps-and-qs/

David Wilton, Wordorigins.org: “mind your Ps and Qs” — dated examples, including Bates (1756) and Francklin (1776), with historical bibliographical references.

https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/mind-your-ps-and-qs

Michael Quinion, World Wide Words: “Mind Your Ps and Qs” — competing explanations and the alphabet evidence. His firm conclusion is stronger than the cautious assessment adopted here.

https://www.worldwidewords.org/psandqs.html

Anatoly Liberman, Oxford University Press: “English idioms: etymological devilry in baking and printing” — the unresolved printer’s explanation.

https://blog.oup.com/2021/11/english-idioms-etymological-devilry-in-baking-and-printing/