Leach makes a startling proposition: that they become partners and launch a new newspaper.

A startling proposition?

He described Frank McLaury's insistence that he would not give up his weapons unless the marshal and his deputies also gave up their arms as a "proposition both monstrous and startling!"

Harlan approached him with a startling proposition: he would organize a rebellion against Dost Mohammed Khan, the usurper who had seized his crown, in return for the post of Shujah's vizier, or chief adviser.

This was indeed a startling proposition.

Cave Brown had put forth a startling proposition to Greene's biographer: that Kim Philby might have been part of an even more complex deception operation than anyone had imagined - a double double-cross.

Catti-brie took a long moment to digest the startling proposition.

The startling proposition that a daughter should be encouraged to take note of her father's faults so much horrified Lady Ombersley that she could think of nothing to say.

Dr. Joseph Markoff, a Philadelphia ophthalmologist and a classically trained trumpet player, was entertaining at a family party when one of the guests made a startling proposition: would Dr. Markoff consider having his trumpet frozen?

Such startling propositions - the product of findings by archaeologists digging in Israel and its environs over the last 25 years - have gained wide acceptance among non-Orthodox rabbis.