I rather liked this short, as it explores the origins of several American slang phrases, using small scenes to explicate the stories. It zips along quite nicely, and dramatizes well. BUT...the conclusions are not to be trusted!
There is doubt about at least one of their solutions: "mind your Ps and Qs" has several different explanations than the one presented in this film. The one I most clearly recall is that it comes from a warning to apprentice printers, back when they had to lay the type by hand (and thus look at it backwards): Ps and Qs were easy to confuse. Thus the admonition.
Neither story is open to confirmation of course, like many of these things.
But that is beside the point perhaps: the little film is charming and cleanly presented, and - at the very least - shows an interest, if not in absolute accuracy, in the origins of language. A pleasant watch.
There is doubt about at least one of their solutions: "mind your Ps and Qs" has several different explanations than the one presented in this film. The one I most clearly recall is that it comes from a warning to apprentice printers, back when they had to lay the type by hand (and thus look at it backwards): Ps and Qs were easy to confuse. Thus the admonition.
Neither story is open to confirmation of course, like many of these things.
But that is beside the point perhaps: the little film is charming and cleanly presented, and - at the very least - shows an interest, if not in absolute accuracy, in the origins of language. A pleasant watch.
