1402: Difficulty with Phrases Oct 13, 2018

It is much harder to find the etymology from phrases as compared to individual words. In part this is because informal phrases don't show up as often in writing, but writing is the best—and historically only—way to record language. Moreover, because phrases are usually not as necessary as individual words, they often emerge suddenly out of only one language and can disappear easily, and unless the phrase comes from something like a book or a play, there won't be enough data to make a conclusion on origin. This does sometimes happen, but in the case of a phrase like "mind one's p's and q's" there may list several possibilities.