"The common Fluency of Speech in many Men, and most Women, is owing to a Scarcity of Matter, and a Scarcity of Words; for whoever is a Master of Language, and hath a Mind full of Ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to hesitate upon the Choice of both; whereas common Speakers have only one Set of Ideas, and one Set of Words to cloath them in, and these are always ready at the Mouth: So People come faster out of a Church when it is almost empty, than when a Crowd is at the Door."
— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for Benjamin Motte
Date
1727
Metaphor
"The common Fluency of Speech in many Men, and most Women, is owing to a Scarcity of Matter, and a Scarcity of Words; for whoever is a Master of Language, and hath a Mind full of Ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to hesitate upon the Choice of both; whereas common Speakers have only one Set of Ideas, and one Set of Words to cloath them in, and these are always ready at the Mouth: So People come faster out of a Church when it is almost empty, than when a Crowd is at the Door."
Metaphor in Context
The common Fluency of Speech in many Men, and most Women, is owing to a Scarcity of Matter, and a Scarcity of Words; for whoever is a Master of Language, and hath a Mind full of Ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to hesitate upon the Choice of both; whereas common Speakers have only one Set of Ideas, and one Set of Words to cloath them in, and these are always ready at the Mouth: So People come faster out of a Church when it is almost empty, than when a Crowd is at the Door.
(pp. 401)
(pp. 401)
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Thoughts on Various Subjects, in Miscellanies in Prose and Verse. The First Volume. (London: Printed for Benjamin Motte, at the Middle-Temple Gate in Fleet-Street, M.DCC.XXVII. [1727]). <Link to ESTC>
Confirmed also in Miscellanies. The First Volume (London: printed for Benjamin Motte, at the Middle-Temple-Gate, Fleetstreet, and sold by Weaver Bickerton, at the Lord Bacon's Head without Temple Bar, and Lawton Gilliver, at Homer's Head over against St. Dunstan's Church, Fleetstreet, [1730] [1731]).
Confirmed also in Miscellanies. The First Volume (London: printed for Benjamin Motte, at the Middle-Temple-Gate, Fleetstreet, and sold by Weaver Bickerton, at the Lord Bacon's Head without Temple Bar, and Lawton Gilliver, at Homer's Head over against St. Dunstan's Church, Fleetstreet, [1730] [1731]).
Date of Entry
09/11/2023
