| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 779.1 | | VOGON::BALL | Smiley face free zone :-) | Fri Feb 23 1990 15:06 | 12 |
| I heard this question asked on a radio phone-in a few years ago. Various people
rang in with answers with various degrees of plausability. The two I can
remember are:
(1) P's and Q's = `please's and `thank you's (say it quickly!)
(2) Printers had to be careful with the `p's and `q's in the days of manual
typesetting - on the blocks reversed left-to-right they look like each other.
There were several other suggestions which I can't remember off hand.
Jon
|
| 779.2 | The printers have it | WELMTS::HILL | Technology is my Vorpal sword | Fri Feb 23 1990 16:43 | 10 |
| Having worked in the print industry, correction I was employed in
it, I can confirm the type setting origin of 'minding your ps and
qs'
(Whilst the rest of the company was on 37.5 hrs/week the DP staff
was on 32.5, "to reduce the impact of computerisation on the clerical
staff". Even so in 12 months I was not expected to do more than
about 3 man-months of work.)
Nick
|
| 779.3 | Or, the qrinters have it! | WELMTS::HILL | Technology is my Vorpal sword | Fri Feb 23 1990 16:43 | 1 |
|
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| 779.4 | see note 489 | GLIVET::RECKARD | Jon Reckard, 381-0878, ZKO3-2/T63 | Fri Feb 23 1990 18:58 | 0 |
| 779.5 | Beer, Ale, and the Dismal Science. | SKIVT::ROGERS | Damnadorum Multitudo | Fri Feb 23 1990 19:06 | 17 |
| Two others - neither of which is probably correct:
1. I have heard that bar tabs in British pubs are tallied in terms of
"p's and q's" as in pints and quarts. Hence, one minds ones p's
and q's to determine how much one has drunk (or owes, or whatever.)
2. When I took Microeconomic Analysis (or Price Theory as it used to be
called in the dark ages when I was in college) I was taught that the
entire dismal subject could be summarised in terms of tracing the
effect of changes in Price on changes in Quantity (or vice versa).
Our professor taught us to "mind our P's and Q's". (The same guy
told us that if you taught a parrot to say "Supply and Demand",
you could get the parrot a job as a teaching assistant in any
economics department in the country.)
Larry Rogers
BS Economics
|
| 779.6 | | TPLAB::KEW | Together in electric dreams | Mon Feb 26 1990 13:42 | 7 |
| > 1. I have heard that bar tabs in British pubs are tallied in terms of
> "p's and q's" as in pints and quarts. Hence, one minds ones p's
> and q's to determine how much one has drunk (or owes, or whatever.)
A tab is actually illegal in a British pub, so this is unlikely.
Jerry
|
| 779.7 | | VOGON::BALL | Smiley face free zone :-) | Mon Feb 26 1990 19:05 | 23 |
| Re .-1
> A tab is actually illegal in a British pub, so this is unlikely.
This may well be legally true - the landlord wouldn't be a licensed credit
broker so I don't suppose he could extend credit - but the tab system is in use
in many pubs. As a regular you can ask for your drink to be put `on the slate'
to be paid for at some indeterminate time in the future when you have plenty of
money.
As a complete rathole, the opposite of this also sometimes happens in British
pubs - if you're buying a round of drinks and someone is not yet ready for
another drink, you can ask for a pint `in the wood'. This means you are paying
for a pint while it's still in the barrel and the recipient can ask for it to
be poured later. This system is fairly obscure but does still happen in some
pubs (within 5 miles of DECpark, Reading).
Back to the p's and q's - I don't remember going to any British pub that served
beer in quarts. I may have been to one but I wouldn't have remembered in the
morning...
Jon
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