In The Unnoticed Sins of Everyday Speech, Amelia Opie exposes the quiet, respectable ways people wound one another with their words. Moving beyond obvious slander, she traces everyday gossip, criticism, mockery, and careless conversation back to deeper roots—pride, rivalry, vanity, envy, and an unchecked desire to be noticed. Through vivid examples drawn from family life, society, religion, and friendship, she shows how easily the tongue becomes an instrument of harm while the heart remains blind to its own motives.
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Chapters
(0:00) - Opening
(0:16) - To the Reader from the Author
(2:41) - Editor’s Note from Scroll Reader 2026
(4:03) - 1 - Introduction
(7:42) - 2 - On General and Particular Competition
(29:01) - 3 - The Subject Continued
(50:45) - 4 - On The Possessive Pronoun
(58:48) - 5 - The Subject Taken Up Again
(1:12:04) - 6 - On Precedence, and Such Things
(1:28:57) - 7 - On Religious Rivalry
(1:43:18) - 8 - On Speaking Ill of Others
(2:03:17) - 9 - On The Different Kinds of People Who Speak Against Others
(3:17:56) - 10 - On Practical Ways of Speaking Against Others
(3:44:12) - 11 - On The Vocabulary of Speaking Against Others
(3:49:23) - 12 - Common Targets of Criticism: Women Writers, “Bluestockings,” Doctors, and New Converts to Serious Religion
(4:47:22) - 13 - On Defamation
(5:18:51) - 14 - On Those Most Particularly Exposed to Harmful Talk
(5:29:46) - 15 - Preventives Against Harmful Speech
(5:44:33) - 16 - Address to Religious Professors
(5:51:38) - 17 - Why Young People Must Guard Their Tongues
(6:14:46) - 18 - Conclusion