Rules and Play
Playable by three (and to some extent two) or more players, the game involves the participants (if numerous, then seated in a circle) "passing" the word zip to the person on their right with their lips curled in over their teeth. The person to one's right must do the same, and so on. If any participant wishes to change the flow of the passage, he or she must say the word bong instead of zip, reverting the game's direction.
The word bong performs one of two functions, depending on how the game is played. The first (and probably more common) function simply uses bong to switch the game's direction. The second has zip stand for a clockwise flow and bong stand for a counterclockwise flow, thus giving both the words zip and bong the power to revert the flow. In either case, use of the words can result in an effective restricting of the game between two players until one chooses not to revert the flow.
The object of the zip and bong is to stay in play. This is accomplished by never showing one's teeth and by not missing one's turn (which is potentially difficult in small groups who make use of the word reversion).
The game can be difficult because the absurdity of its play easily causes laughter, which can lead to exposure of the teeth.
Read more about this topic: Zip And Bong
Famous quotes containing the words rules and, rules and/or play:
“Most of the rules and precepts of the world take this course of pushing us out of ourselves and driving us into the market place, for the benefit of public society.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“Those rules of old discovered, not devised,
Are Nature sill, but Nature methodized;
Nature, like liberty, is but restrained
By the same laws which first herself ordained.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“The boneless quality of English conversation, which, so far as I have heard it, is all form and no content. Listening to Britons dining out is like watching people play first-class tennis with imaginary balls.”
—Margaret Halsey (b. 1910)