In the wake of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act of 1984 (PACE), and the changes made in Northern Ireland concerning the right to silence (from 1988), the traditional caution that was addressed to suspects on arrest has been changed. I would like to analyse the various versions of the caution, including the most recent one, in terms of their content and their comprehensibility, and to investigate how the wording may reflect the current legal position concerning what has at one time been considered a major bulwark of English justice. The discussion relates to the English position; however, similar consideration may be given to what is widely known as the Miranda warning in the United States, which is the caution read out to suspects to avoid complications that may derive from infringements of the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution (against self-incrimination). The crux of the entire matter is whether a suspect's silence during police interrogation can be held against him or her, and likewise, whether a judge or attorney may refer to the suspect's silence in front of the jury. This should be understood against the background of how people interpret silence in the normal course of events. One can disting-uish primarily two types of silence:(i) psychological, and (ii) intentional. The first type is unintentional, and stems from various temporary or permanent inhibitions present in the person being questioned. Under temporary inhibitions we may include embarrassment due perhaps to the topic under discussion, while among more permanent inhibitions figure shyness and various neuroses. Intentional silence, on the other hand, seems to indicate, to put it mildly, a lack of cooperation. This total violation of Grice's cooperative principle makes the silent person immediately suspect, for it will be generally believed that s/he is hiding