[scandox]

Winston Churchill produced 51 volumes of history and is generally regarded, in this pursuit, as having drank a cup and pissed an Ocean. I doubt they will continue to be read much once his personal historical aura has sufficiently faded.

Gibbon on the other hand in 6 volumes wrote a work that will probably be in print until Western Civilisation sinks into the dust.

So - kinda depends I would say.

[radicaledward]

I'm not sure if your counter example holds up. Wikipedia indicates that Edward Gibbon wrote way more than just The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire [1]. And those are the works we know about that he didn't just burn immediately (or whatever). The successful stuff sticks around and holds up, but that can create inaccurate views for how many failures came before (and after) the success.

As a side note, I also find it amusing that you expect Churchill's "aura" to fade. If current trends are any indication, he's moving toward folk tale hero status rather than the slow march toward obscurity (with multiple appearances in Doctor Who and other fictional media). In my opinion, the only thing that potentially stands in the way is a possible upheaval of the Western power base or an Alexandria style purge of knowledge. I say this as a US citizen who is much too young to remember the fall out of the war, much less the war itself.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Gibbon

[munificent]

> having drank a cup and pissed an Ocean

I've never heard this figure of speech and Google isn't turning anything up. What does it mean?

[obastani]

From the context, I think it means that the 51 volumes (the ocean) contains very little content (the cup). I also don't think the grandparent comment reflects the intent of the original post -- prolificness is the number of attempted works, not the length of any single work.

[maldusiecle]

Churchill didn't write 51 volumes as one work; he was very prolific in the sense of many attempted works. Gibbon's six volumes were in a single work, and he wrote a few other shorter works. By the standard of number of attempted works, Churchill and Gibbon are good examples.

[tomc1985]

I've never seen this either but judging purely from the wording it sounds like someone has produced an excessive amount of output from very little input, aka bullshitting

[pharrington]

Judging from context, it's the act of relentlessly and consummately bullshitting.