Mind your P's and Q's!

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Originally Posted by Cz

"You can't have your cake and eat it too". It's crap on so many levels. :p

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I know! What the hell is the point of having cake that you can't eat!

*lower's a boom on Cbc for making such things seem absurd when they are clearly ridiculous.*

The one that gets me is "What the hell?" I don't understand the sentence structure or know the origin of the saying. If someone could explain either, I'd be appreciative.

I think a brain cell dies every time I hear "Oh baloney!"

If wishes were horses, we'd all be eating steak.

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Originally Posted by Nominus Experse

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Originally Posted by Dignified Pauper

Does anyone know what this means? Further, can we just state our favorite old-saying. What have you heard the older generation say that you simply don't understand.

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I own a book titled Do Fish Drink Water?, Puzzling and Improbable Questions and Answers,written and compiled by Bill McLain. The relevence of mentioning that it was written by Bill McLain is this:

Bill McLain was recognized as a leading expert in searching for information and services on the Internet. As Webmaster for Xerox, Bill lived up to an unusaul commitment he made to answer every e-mail with a real answer within 24 hours, a feat that gained him international attention and inspired his nationally syndicated radio show.

According to this book, "Mind your P's and Q's!" means the following:

In early times, patrons of English pubs would often run a bar tab. To keep track of how much a patron owed, the bartender would keep a tally of the pints (p's) and quarts (q's) of beer each parton had consumed. If the bill became too high, the bartender would tell the patron, "Mind your P's and Q's!" In other words, "Pay up!"

That is how the book stated it, and thus, that is what I choose to believe.

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See? See? I TOLD you! My (different) book says that, too! Its called "Why do Donuts have Holes?. Its a book with a bunch of weird crap about the food we eat.

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Originally Posted by Shaun

Er, by saying "P's and Q's" you're making that singular. In fact, that makes no sense at all.

Ps and Qs?

*scrolls up and sees how many others have made the same mistake*

Pay more attention in English lesson! ;)

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According to Eats, Shoots & Leaves, a book about punctuation by Lynn Truss, apostrophes are used to indicate the plurals of letters and also some words such as "What are the do's and dont's?"
"Are there too many but's and and's at the beginnings of sentences these days?"
"I made straight A's this semester."

Old sayings I hate?
Stop dawdling.