to mind one's manners. (Fixed order.) • When we go to the mayor's reception, please mind your p's and q's. • I always mind my p's and q's when I eat at a restaurant with white tablecloths.
mind one's p's and q's|mind|p|q
v. phr. To be very careful what you do or say; not make mistakes. When the principal of the school visited the class the students all minded their p's and q's.If you wish to succeed you must mind your p's and q's. (From the old U.S. Navy when sailors marked on a board in the bar how many Pints and Quarts of liquor they had taken. It was bad manners to cheat.) Synonym: WATCH ONE'S STEP.
mind (one's) p's and q's
To be affable and able-bodied behaved; to apperception one's manners. Be abiding to apperception your p's and q's back you appointment your aunt this weekend!The mother reminded her adolescent accouchement to apperception their p's and q's back they went over to their friends' houses for comedy dates.Learn more: and, mind
mind one's p's and q's
Practice acceptable manners, be absolute and accurate in one's behavior and speech, as in Their grandmother generally told the accouchement to apperception their p's and q's. The agent of this expression, aboriginal recorded in 1779, is disputed. Among the added absorbing theories avant-garde is that bartenders kept clue of customers' burning in agreement of pints (p's) and quarts (q's) and the byword referred to an honest accounting; that schoolchildren were accomplished to be accurate in appropriate the belletrist p and q; and that French dancing masters cautioned pupils about the actual achievement of the abstracts pieds and queues (either abbreviated or mispronounced in English as p's and q's). Learn more: and, mind
mind one's p's and q's, to
To be actual accurate about one’s words and/or behavior. The aboriginal acceptation of p and q has been lost, and there are assorted theories, alignment from “pints and quarts” in the bartender’s accounts, to accouchement ambagious the two belletrist in acquirements their alphabet, to the French dancing master’s pieds and queues, figures that charge be accurately performed. The appellation was acclimated from the seventeenth aeon on but is heard beneath generally today.Learn more: and, mindLearn more:
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Dictionary of similar words, Different wording, Synonyms, Idioms for Idiom, Proverb mind one's p's and q's