'Unparliamentary language' can hog the limelight, but its close cousin is often more interesting and illuminating.
Parliamentary language is the words you do not hear very much outside Westminster - but which come up surprisingly frequently while listening to politicians.
"Loon" would be one of them.
"Swivel-eyed" another.
There was a great example in the chamber during Prime Minister's Questions yesterday - "crackpot".
Tory MP Sir Peter Tapsell had risen to try to argue that without a second job becoming an MP (salary £67,000) may become the reserve of the rich, "crackpots" and .... those who are "unemployable anywhere else".
On any other week this would have been a cue for MPs on all sides of the House to start pointing at each other.
But following days of serious allegations of 'cash-for-access' his claim attracted only derision.
It also did little to help David Cameron, already under pressure on the issue from Ed Miliband.
Labour was pushing the Prime Minister to sign up to their motion to ban MPs holding outside consultancies or directorships.
The Tory leader rejected that suggestion and tried to embarrass Labour.
Their plans to curb second jobs would still allow MPs to be "trade union officials", he said.
As he spoke Mr Miliband initially looked baffled, briefly conferred with colleagues, and swiftly stood up to agree with the Prime Minister.
Yes, he effectively said, thanks for pointing that out, we'll ban trade union posts too .
'Now will you vote with us?'
Mr Cameron hardly knew where to look.
Labour MPs loved it, clearly thinking they had Mr Cameron on the ropes.
Mr Cameron tried to have the last laugh.
He congratulated a Labour MP on his new post within the party and confidently predicted that in 70 days he could use that position to launch a "root-and-branch review of what went wrong".
Parliamentary language, indeed.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article