Word: parlor
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Originally a Victorian parlor game, bunco made its way to the U.S. in the mid-1850s as a gambling game known first as "banco" and later as "bunco" or "bunko." During the Gold Rush, a crooked gambler in San Francisco is said to have used the game to bilk some Forty-Niners out of their money, turning its name into a general term for cons. In 1996 Carlsbad, Calif., toy marketer Leslie Crouch packaged its components under the title It's Bunco Time!!! and started marketing it to women. Now, on any given night, groups all over the country gather...
...front door opens to reveal a hallway decked in intricately patterned wallpaper and framed paintings; a young woman invites the guests into a rose-colored parlor. Plates of cookies, brownies and small sandwiches cover a coffee table at one end of the room...
Guests in the rapidly filling parlor know what is expected: they accept a saucer and wander among armchairs initiating conversations. Some of them have been taking tea for years at Sparks House, nested behind Memorial Hall...
...event, entitled “Literature and Controversy,” replaced a previously scheduled reading in the Barker Center’s Thompson Parlor. Discussed texts included Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita and plays by Shakespeare...
...White House, there is an ongoing parlor game to rate Bush's possible Democratic challengers in 2004. Political guru Rove figures union support will give Gephardt the nomination. Another Bush adviser says Edwards' charisma and experience as a trial lawyer enable him to confront Bush's coziness with business. Yet another views Kerry as the toughest potential rival: "The people who assume we can kill Kerry are the same people who thought Bill Clinton was a hick who couldn't win." They all but dismiss Gore. But then their boss is living proof of the power of low expectations...