Original Opinions

What matters on on the other sites we're involved in is what you say, not how you say it.

But this site is about how we communicate - the actual skills involved.

So we wouldn't like to  ignore the fact that sometimes in discussion, people find very colourful ways to express themselves.

So we thought that we should take just one small area of the site as a kind of collectors' corner, where we gather up lively examples of the art of rhetoric - just to confirm that it's not dead.

In doing so, we do of course suspend judgment on the merits or demerits of the particular point being made. Here we focus on style, rather than content. Of course if you agree or disagree, we would like to hear!

And to start with, here's a letter from The Big Issue in Scotland of 9-15 April 2009:

EYE WITNESS

Police investigating the attack on disgraced ex-RBS boss Sir Fred Goodwin's home in Edinburgh, during which windows were smashed and a luxury car damaged, have appealed for witnesses.

What a pity there wasn't an appeal for witnesses BEFORE the event - millions of us would have loved to have been there.

Robert Readman, Bournemouth

And now a letter in The Daily Telegraph of 22 May 2009 on the subject of MPs expenses:

SIR - Now that the Gurkhas have won the right to settle in this country, I wonder if they still want to.

Robin Gaskell, Hartford, Cheshire

The point about MPs and their expenses can also sometimes be made indirectly, while speaking about soemthing else, as in a letter to The Times of 29 May 2009:

WHERE ROOKS DARE

Sir, I am not surprised that rooks have been shown to have a high degree of innate intelligence (report, May 26, and letter, May 28). One that regularly visits our garden uses the birdbath to repeatedly soak the bread we leave out until it considers it soft enough to eat. It will not do this, hwoever, if the water is dirty. It seems unfortunate that one of the collective nouns for such a smart bird should be a 'parliament'.

Tony Phillips, Chalfont St Giles, Bucks