His only rule, tacit but pervasive, proclaimed: "No compromises."

Stile had won, by the tacit rules; the others had seemed to be against him only because he had been low totem, not because he was new or small.

But asked how he might transform television news, Mr. Serna stressed the tacit rules of responsible Mexican journalism.

Indeed, many of these tacit rules remind us of those examined by the Chicago School in their early studies of youth gangs.

There are ways of going on (in Wittgensteinian vocabulary) that mark out one discipline from another, with their tacit rules that can only be learned by being active in that community.

"A soloist," we learn, "would never get into a car driven by a music critic she didn't know; it's a tacit rule that is rarely broken, and then only by cellists."

If possible, not to let the men so much as surmise that their officers anticipate aught amiss from them is the tacit rule in a military ship.

THEY made explicit the tacit rules of workplace behavior.

Push, yes, hurt, no, seems to be the tacit rule.

We play tougher, though we've stuck to the tacit rules so far.