Vocalising my thoughts tends to get in the way - it's main purpose is to communicate to someone else and that's where I usually stumble trying to get the thought out accurately in a way that they're going to understand. We go back and forth until they do. IMO this again puts thoughts first and words second.

OTOH sometimes saying things different ways triggers a memory so I suspect words get used in a way that anything we can sense gets used - as a sort of index or hash key to other data.