[표현]
mind your Ps and Qs
Ps와 Qs는 알파벳 P와 Q의 복수형을 표시한다. 문법학자들 사이에서는 Ps와 Qs의 표기 방법에 대한 약간의 의견 차이가 있는데, 1. 'mind your p's and q's' 2. 'mind your Ps and Qs' 3. 'mind your P's and Q's' 4. 'mind your ps and qs,' 이렇게 4가지의 표기 방법이 있다.
[의미]
최대한 정중히 행동하다[예의를 갖추다]
이 표현의 본래의 뜻에 대한 한 가지 의심이 있는데 영국의 사전 편찬자 Francis Grose는 1785년 판의 Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue에서 이 표현을 다음과 같이 정의한다:
"To mind one's P's and Q's; to be attentive to the main chance."
[유래]
이 표현이 언제 새로 만들어졌는지에 대한 기록은 분명하지 않다. 이 표현의 가장 오래된 사용은 극작가 Thomas Dekker의 1602년작 The Untrussing of the Humorous Poet인 것으로 보인다:
Afinius: ...here's your cloak; I think it rains too.
Horace: Hide my shoulders in't.
Afinius: 'Troth, so thou'dst need; for now thou art in thy Pee and Kue: thou hast such a villanous broad back...
위의 인용구의 'Pee and Kue'는 의복의 한 형태를 가리키는 것으로 보여 다소 모호하다. 또한 위의 표현이 'mind one's Ps and Qs'와 같은 것인지는 분명하지 않다. Thomas Dekker은 1607년에도 극작가인 존 웹스터와의 공동작 West-ward Hoe에서도 이 표현을 썼다:
At her p. and q. neither Marchantes Daughter, Aldermans Wife, young countrey Gentlewoman, nor Courtiers Mistris, can match her.
위의 인용구에서의 'p and q'는 그전 작품과는 달리 의복의 형태를 가리키고 있는 것처럼 보이지는 않는다.
'Pee and Kue'와 'p and q'는 이 둘의 스펠링 중 무엇이 맞는 것이고 이것이 무슨 의미인지에는 논란이 있다. 이에 이 표현의 의미의 유래일 것으로 추정되는 5가지 설을 소개한다:
1. Mind your pints and quarts. This is suggested as deriving from the practice of chalking up a tally of drinks in English pubs (on the slate). Publicans had to make sure to mark up the quart drinks as distinct from the pint drinks. This explanation is widely repeated but there's little to support it, apart from the fact that pint and quart begin with P and Q.
2. Advice to printers' apprentices to avoid confusing the backward-facing metal type lowercase Ps and Qs, or the same advice to children who were learning to write. I've never heard any suggestion that anyone should 'mind their Ds and Bs' though, even though that makes just as much sense and has the added benefit of rhyming, which would have made it a more attractive slogan. Nevertheless, the fact that handmade paper was an expensive commodity and that the setting of type in early presses was very time consuming makes the printing story a strong candidate. The fact that type had to be set upside down and backwards made the need for a warning to be careful doubly appropriate.
3. Mind your pea (jacket) and queue (wig). Pea jackets were short rough woollen overcoats, commonly worn by sailors in the 18th century. Perruques were full wigs worn by fashionable gentlemen. It is difficult to imagine the need for an expression to warn people to avoid confusing them.
'Pee', as a name for a man's coarse coat, is recorded as early as 1485, so it is possible that that is what Dekker was referring to in his 1602 citation. If so, that usage long pre-dates all others and we have the definitive origin of 'pee and kue'. 'Kue' or 'cue' as the name of a man's wig isn't known until well after 1602 though, so it still isn't certain what Dekker meant by it.
4. Mind your pieds (feet) and queues (wigs). This is suggested to have been an instruction given by French dancing masters to their charges. This has the benefit of placing the perruque in the right context - as long as we accept the phrase as being originally French. However, there's no reason to suppose it is from France and no version of the phrase exists in French.
5. Another version of the 'advice to children' origin has it that 'Ps and Qs' derives from 'mind your pleases and thank-yous''. That is widely touted as an origin but seems to me to be a back-formation, that is, an explanation fitted to explain the phrase after it was coined in some other context. 'Pleases and thank-yous' doesn't appear to lead to 'Ps and Qs'.
[출처]
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/mind-your-ps-and-qs.html
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