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Reader question: Please explain “the other side of the coin”, as this sentence: “If I’m wrong,” he said, “I’m more than happy to be corrected and shown the other side of the coin.” My comments: The other side of the coin refers to the other side of the story, reality. It represents, in fact, the opposite view. In our example, the speaker is willing to be shown the other side of the coin, i.e. to be told of what he does not see and that’s always a good quality to have if you are the kind of people who argue a lot. Here the speaker suspects that his views are one-sided and is happy to be told the opposite view points. Or the other side of the coin, as he says. This saying, a cliché due to overuse, is based on the fact that there are two sides to every coin, the front side and the flip side or back side. Everything has two sides to it, as a matter of fact even though this is something that’s not always easy to see or even fathom. One’s own hand, for instance has the front and the back. A mountain, too, has two sides. If one side is sunny, the other is shady. If one side is seen, the other is hidden. The view is hidden alright, but it’s there. Minority view points, for another example, are not always propagated on air – in television, on the radio or via the Internet – but minorities do exist. They’re there. That’s why we often use the other side of the coin, the hidden or less observed side to emphasize this very fact. | 
