chewing your words

[Coenraedt]

Dear visitors of ESL forum,

I'm trying to figure out the meaning of the saying 'chewing your words'. Is it something like carefully choosing your words, or does it have something to do with not saying everything you think?

Thank you,
Coenraedt

[MrPedantic]

Hello Coenraedt

I haven't heard this phrase before; but to judge by the examples on Google, there are three possible meanings:

1. To reflect carefully upon your words before you speak.
2. To mumble.
3. To accept that something you have said is incorrect (= variant of "eat your words").

Have you found a particular example of the phrase?

All the best,

MrP

[Mad-ox]

I think that the third variant of MrPedantic is the most suitable but this is only an assumption as I haven't found it in any important dictionary!

chewing your words=eat your words

[Anglika]

Originally Posted by Coenraedt

Dear visitors of ESL forum,

I'm trying to figure out the meaning of the saying 'chewing your words'. Is it something like carefully choosing your words, or does it have something to do with not saying everything you think?

Thank you,
Coenraedt

I did wonder if this phrase was in fact "chewing over your words" - considering what you have said carefully.

[Humble]

My guess is MrP's #2 - to pronounce indistictly.

[BobK]

I'd guess at MrP's #3 - but not just 'eating your words'; finding it difficult to do. Talking indistinctly, though (on the analogy of 'swallowing your words' - which is an idiom), is quite possible.

b

[paux]

I think it may mean you want to say something, maybe something impolite, and you are holding your tongue.

[BobK]

Originally Posted by paux

I think it may mean you want to say something, maybe something impolite, and you are holding your tongue.

There is already an expression for that - 'to bite your tongue' [it doesn't apply to your whole context specifically, but just to the situation of wanting to say something and not saying it].

When he said that, I had to bite my tongue. He's such a hypocrite.

b

[Coenraedt]

Dear MrP, Mad-ox, Humble, Anglika, BobK en Paux,

I found out that the frase was actuallly 'chew upon your words'. The context is: a conversation between two women, one of them is about to tell a painful story of the past "And yet it came . . . ", but then she suddenly stops. The second woman asks: "What came? . . . Why do you chew upon your words? . . . What came?."
Given this context I think I'll go for MrP's first variant and paux.
Thank you all very much for your replies!

Kind regards,
Coenraedt