To prate means to talk on and on about something. While it may be interesting to hear about other people’s vacations, when they prate about them until the wee hours, it becomes intolerable.
There are more than a few instances where the famous have discouraged prating. Nursing great Clara Barton discouraged prating about “moral influences” when she encouraged a cigarette and a good, stiff glass of whiskey for Civil War soldiers. Herman Melville warned against mocking a lover’s wounded heart, saying “the stabbed man knows steel; prate not to him that it is only a ticking feather.”
