Mind your Ps and Qs
"Behave properly; be on your best manners."
Nobody actually knows where this one comes from, despite no shortage of confident-sounding theories. Candidates include: pub landlords tracking pints and quarts on a tally slate; apprentice typesetters needing to mind the difference between mirror-image lowercase "p" and "q" blocks; and French dancing masters telling students to watch their "pieds" (feet) and "queues" (wigs). The earliest known print use is from 1779, in a general sense of "mind your manners," with no explanation attached, which is exactly the problem. Take any confident answer you hear with a large pinch of salt.
Myth vs. FactEvery explanation you've probably heard is a guess, including the printer's-type one, which is the most commonly repeated but has no documentary backing.
Sources: Earliest citation: 1779 correspondence, cited in the Oxford English Dictionary; no attributed origin story survives from the period.
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