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Reader question: Please explain “shouting match”, as in this sentence: Let’s have a discussion about baseball, not a shouting match. My comments: Here, I think the speaker is asking participants not to raise their voice, lest a discussion on the subject of baseball really turns into a match, of the quarrelling type. A shouting match literally is a contest in which the person who has the loudest voice wins. In our example, the speaker tries to remind everybody, I think, that they don’t need to raise their voice and turn their discussion into a vociferous quarrel. In other words, speak cordially and softly and make your point with reason and logic. Your speech will be judged on its logical merit, not by the decibel level at which it is delivered. No extra points, in short, for shouting yourself hoarse and turning blue in the face. Anyways, when a discussion or debate turns into a shouting match, it means that the participants have lost their cool and are now shouting at each other, perhaps hurtling insults left and right and center. They get angry and throw reason to the wind. The next stage will be a screaming match, next, a bare-knuckled fist fight. Next, gunshots are heard. I’m kidding. Normal discussions seldom turn into a screaming match or a fist fight, let alone a gun battle – although I can see it happen with the American National Rifle Association. I don’t wish NRA members turn against each that way, of course, but if they do make use of their guns, perhaps it’s a good idea to use it on each other rather than on the public in general, or schoolchildren in particular. | 
