I Wish I’d Said That.

Dr. Boli’s Occasional Journal of Quotations.



Big Words, Small Meaning.

I know not whether they work that in others, which they doe in mee. But when I heare our Architects mouth-out those bigge and ratling words of Pilasters, Arhitraves, Cornixes, Frontispieces, Corinthians, and Dorike workes and such-like fustian-termes of theirs, I cannot let my wandering imagina­tion from a soddaine apprehension of Apollidonius his pallace, and I finde by effect, that they are the seche, and decayed peeces of my Kitchin-doore. Doe but heare one pronounce Metonomia, Metaphore, Allegory, Ætymologie, and other such trash-names of Grammer, would you not thinke, they meant some forme of a rare and strange language? They are titles and wordes, that concern your chamber-maides tittle-tattle.

——Montaigne, Essays, translated by John Florio: The first Booke, the one and fiftieth chapter. Of the vanitie of Wordes.