Life & Wisdom Quote by P. G. Wodehouse

Wodehouse lands the joke with the elegance of a soufflé and the cruelty of a pin. “Poured into her clothes” turns getting dressed into an act of manufacture: the woman becomes a molded product, a human form treated like liquid meant to fit a container. Then comes the kicker - she “forgotten to say ‘when’” - borrowing the rhythm of a bartender or barber who keeps going until the customer calls time. The comedy is that her body is framed as an overpoured drink, excess spilling past the supposed limit of good taste.

The intent isn’t subtle: it’s a quick, socially acceptable jab at a figure who’s either voluptuous or squeezed into something too tight, delivered with the airy politeness of drawing-room banter. Wodehouse’s special skill is making meanness sound like manners. He doesn’t call her names; he builds a tiny scene where the reader supplies the judgment and laughs at their own complicity.

Subtextually, it’s also about control. Clothes represent the rules of class and propriety - you don’t just have a body, you manage it. The line flatters the speaker’s wit while policing the boundary of what’s “appropriate,” especially for women whose bodies are treated as public commentary. In Wodehouse’s world of idle rich and social performance, appearances are currency, and the sharpest weapon is a sentence that sounds like nothing at all.