
"Have you ever said something automatically and upon hearing the words escape from your mouth thought, 'If only I could have bitten my lip for ten seconds more no offence would have been caused!'
They say 'Act in haste and repent at leisure' and yet despite knowing this, all of us are prone to open our mouths and put our foot in it from time to time. The real harm comes I suppose in the knowledge that for right or wrong, good or bad, once spoken the words cannot be unsaid. Even if sincerely and apologetically retracted, the wound the arrow caused when it left the bow shall still remain in a hurtful place. It will remain in the mind and memory of both offender and offended for all time, to risk being partly regurgitated every time the original incident is referred to or brought back up in conversation.
Such unfortunate slips of the tongue apply within families as well as without and even parents and children and sibling and sibling fall foul of this practice from time to time.
There are so many people whom I love yet who I know that my unguarded words may have once offended. And while I love the English language, even straight talking emanating from a twisted mouth and mind can make the teeth bite hard into the lip. Perhaps it's better to draw blood from one's lip than to learn to shoot too fast from the hip?" William Forde: October 18th, 2014.