– Be careful of your alcohol consumption.*

Origins: 17th century | It originally came about from English pubs and Taverns. Bartenders would keep a tally of the pints and quarts their patrons were consuming and if they were getting a bit rowdy, remind them to “watch their p’s and q’s.” It was also the manner in which the bartender would keep track of the drink tally for patrons. A p for pint and q for quart.

Forget P’s and Q’s, this guy has trouble minding his G’s and K’s!
(Gallons and Kegs)

*while this is our favorite description another origin could be that it came from early printing press operations. Printers placed individual metal letters on a typeset to print a page of text. The letters were reversed, making it easy to mistake lowercase p’s and q’s in setting the type. So it could also be said that it came about as a way to say “be mindful of the details”

….yeah, we know that this is a much more apropos definition as we are a design firm and deal with printing specs and visual details on a daily basis…but we like the beer one way better.