[俚語] 跟字母有關的片語

* to mind your Ps and Qs
* to dot the i's and cross the t's





to mind your Ps and Qs   意思是 to watch your manners; be careful to behave well and avoid giving offense;也就是「注意你的禮貌;表現得極為客氣有禮」

<Cambridge> to make an effort to be especially polite in a particular situation:
I have to mind my p's and q's when I'm with my grandmother.


但,這關P、Q什麼事呢?

OxfordWord Blog的 Where does the expression ‘to mind your Ps and Qs’ come from? 寫道:


英國語言庫的 Phrase finder 則這麼介紹此片語


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另一個也跟英文字母有關的片語是  dot the i's and cross the t's

意思是(在完成前)確定任何小地方都沒有遺漏或出錯;注意細節
 to pay a great deal of attention to the details of something, especially when you are trying to complete a task <Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus>

e.g. The negotiations are nearly finished, but we still have to dot the i's and cross the t's.


另亦可參考這則論壇討論的回答
When you are writing in longhand, in "script" or "cursive" you keep writing letters and don't stop to dot the i's or the j's, or cross the t's. You go back and do that after you write the entire word. Sometimes, you write so fast that you forget to go back and do that. If you have made sure that all the i's are dotted and all the t's are crossed, you have performed your task carefully and made sure you did not miss anything.

It is almost never used as an actualy admonition to school children. It's used instead as a metaphor to mean that you did absolutely everything that is supposed to be done, usually as it relates to following a specific procedure.

A similar metaphor: I made sure nothing is going to fall through the cracks.

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★ 有趣的是,Oxford比較正統,P跟Q大寫且其複數不加apostrophes ('s),



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