Meaning & Analysis
It is preferable to stumble or make a physical mistake (slip with the feet) than to say something ill-advised or harmful (slip with the tongue), as spoken words can have lasting consequences.
Insights
Lasting Impact of Words
The proverb emphasizes that verbal mistakes are often more damaging than physical ones, since careless or harmful speech can wound reputations, relationships, and trust in ways that physical stumbles do not.
Reversibility of Mistakes
Physical slips are usually momentary and easily remedied, while slips of the tongue—whether insults, secrets, or lies—can have enduring, sometimes irreversible consequences.
Historical Symbolism
Since antiquity, the tongue has been seen as an instrument of both power and danger, with proverbs and moral teachings warning of its potential to harm. The contrast between foot and tongue reflects anxieties about self-control and the value placed on prudent speech in social life.
Cultural Resonance
Similar proverbs abound in many cultures—'A word once spoken cannot be recalled'—underscoring a universal human recognition of the weight of words compared to fleeting physical errors.
Psychological Perspective
Psychologically, the saying warns of the impulsive nature of speech and the difficulty of undoing verbal damage, advocating for mindfulness and restraint in communication.
Rhetorical Devices
Antithesis
The proverb pits two types of slips against each other, dramatizing the contrast between transient physical error and the potentially lasting harm of words.
Parallelism
Its balanced structure—'feet slip' versus 'tongue slip'—creates rhythm and clarity, enhancing memorability and rhetorical force.
Metaphor
Uses the physical act of slipping as a metaphor for error, transferring the lesson from the body to speech and conduct.
Transcription
Quotations
Remembering alwayes that it is better to slip with the foote, then with the tongue.
Better it is with foote to slip, Then with the tongue to trip.
T'is better stumble with thy feet Then stumble with thy tongue.
Better the foot slip then the tongue trip.
Better is it to slide with the Foot then with the Tongue.
Better may a mans foot slip then his tongue trip.
(Better that the).
Its better to slip with ones feet, than with the tongue.
(Better that the).
(Foot).
A Slip of the Foot you may soon recover, But a Slip of the Tongue you may never get over.
Annotations
- Commonly the tripping of the tongue and the slipping of the foot happen both together. Now if a man be late abroad, 'tis better that his tongue should trip then his foot slip, for he may chance to fall in the street, and have a coach go over him.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.