Minding Your P’s and Q’s

I have not been vagabonding much of late, so today I am sharing another instalment from “My Super-Awesome Oxford Adventure” series. I took the photo above of the impressive facade of the Oxford University Press building on Great Clarendon Street on a work trip in 2002. I actually worked within the walls of this building for a week developing the 8th Edition of The Canadian Oxford School Atlas. I must say I loved walking in these massive front doors each day!

The Press has a very, very long history of publishing dating back to 1478, when the first book was printed here not long after William Caxton set up the first printing press in England.  The earliest works at the Press were editions of The Authorized King James Bible but by the late 1800’s, the press expanded into academic publishing and expanded its base overseas to New York in 1896, and to Toronto in 1904, among other locations. You can learn more about Oxford University Press’ storied past here, and here.

Today I wanted to share a personal story about The Press. As I mentioned above, I worked within its walls for a week developing a school atlas for Canadian students. It was a hectic week working with the Press’ cartographers planning out each element of each page of what we called COSA 8. Our days were filled with latitudes, longitudes, thematic maps and statistics right at the time when the Press’ cartography department was making the shift to digital map making. Pretty heady stuff!! Evenings were often filled with lovely dinners, walks through The Port Meadow, and long chats over barley sandwiches at local, ancient pubs. One evening we were treated to a walk-through of the Press’ amazing museum, deep in the bowels of the building. For any bibliophile or wordsmith, this is like nirvana!

The OUP Museum brings the Press’ past to life by tracing its long history in printing and publishing from the 1500’s until today. I got to witness first hand the printing equipment that helped the press develop such works as Alice in Wonderland and the massive Oxford English Dictionary. I learned about the story of Professor and Dictionary Lexicographer James Murray and his association with Dr. William Chester Minor, the American Civil War vet who contributed thousands of words to the development of the dictionary. Murray was later to find that William Minor made his linguistic contributions from deep within the confines of Broadmoor, England’s asylum for the criminally insane!  You of course can read about this fascinating tale in Simon Winchester’s The Professor and the Madman. At the time of my visit, there were rumours that a movie was being made of this story and that (gasp!) Mel Gibson was to star as The Professor. A quick check on my trusty IMDB app tells me that this version of the movie never did see the light of day. Phew!  Who would you like to see bring this fascinating story to life in film? I personally vote for Jonny Lee Miller (Elementary) as the Madman. Anthony Hopkins as The Professor??

Now, back to the crux of this story and my choice for this post’s title.  In the museum I learned about the evolution of the  printing press process and got to see James Murray’s filing system for the dictionary and also touch case types used in the making of the dictionary. In doing this, I also learned the possible etymology of such commonly used but often misunderstood phrases such as “minding your p’s and q’s” and getting “the wrong end of the stick.” If you could imagine that early printing was a very hand’s on activity that involved a small chain gang literally building words and sentences with individual casings on “sticks.” The best way I can describe this process is an analogy from Scrabble. Imagine building a word with tiles on your tile holder or stick. The word must be spelled backwards for the printing process to work.  Imagine an assembly line of sentences being built this way. P’s and Q’s look so similar, especially backwards. Mind them! And what if you passed your “stick” on to the next person the wrong way? They would get “the wrong end of the stick.” Of course, there are other origin stories for these phrases but the printing press version makes perfect sense, especially when you witness it live! If you would like to learn more about the OUP Museum, please visit here, and here.

So I hope you mind your p’s and q’s this week so that you do not get the wrong end of the stick. And if by chance you have a copy of The Canadian Oxford Dictionary on your desk, look up the word stressful. You will find me there. Really!! But that is a story for another post.  Have a great week dear readers!