Ever wondered why do we say “mind your P’s and Q’s” to mean “be on your good behavior”? Well, I for one, never had a clue. So, started another research – and I am liking to get to know the origins of phrases and words enough that I have started a separate section in my blog dedicated to this.

My first instinct was that it came from trying to keep everything prim and proper by neatly separating your similar looking letter p’s and q’s. Well, turns out it is not “mind your p’s and q’s”. It is “P’s and Q’s”. Those are difficult to get confused with when you read, write or type.

Some people think – which is mostly denounced – it stands for your “Please”s and “Thank You”s. Even I agree that it is too far fetched.

Turns out the most popular theory goes back to the 17th century. In fact, to the bars of England. All beer and ale was served in pint size containers and quart size containers. While there is reference in literature to suggest that it started as a lingo with the barmen, it is not quite surely known whether it was used to warn somebody who has imbibed too much to behave himself or it was used to keep a proper tally of the alcohol consumption itself.

Well, while it is not accepted by everybody, most seem to believe that it was from the bars of the 17th century England came the saying “mind your P’s and Q’s” meaning to mind one’s manners.

Who knew?

I was reading a social discourse which talked about a certain category of folks getting away “scot free”. Which got me thinking about where could this phrase possible have come from. Of course, it means to “get away without penalty or unpunished” but how do you put a Scot in that?

Some amount of research showed that actually, this has nothing to do with the Scots. Apparently, “scot” refers to taxes. Specifically, 12th century England municipal taxes. And the Anglo Saxon word was “sceot”. But there were similar words at that time – Swedish “scatt”, Danish “scat”, Icelandic “scattur” – all meaning tax. In fact as recently as in 1921, the US Senate Committee on Finance hearings transcripts read “[The common laborer]He is scot free at 40 cents an hour”.

So “scot free” meant escaping without taxation. And all of us agree taxation is an unnecessary punishment 🙂

And that is how “scot free” came around to mean “get away without penalty”.