"faro"<"pharaoh", formerly Re: "dude" et al.

[Mullins, Bill]

Thanks for following up.  I hope to get this book someday, for a bunch of
non-etymological reasons, but haven't yet.  My book-buying agenda is as
disorganized as my file of Linking Ring magazines.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: George Thompson [mailto:george.thompson at NYU.EDU]
> Sent: Friday, December 10, 2004 3:34 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: "faro"<"pharaoh", formerly Re: "dude" et al.
>
>
> Bill Mullins quotes from an article on "the faro shuffle" by
> S. Brent Morris published in a magician's magazine, but says
> that the references to the historical statements he quotes
> are in a sequel which he doesn't have.  He also cites
> Morris's book Magic Tricks, Card
> > Shuffling,and Dynamic Computer Memories, but does not own it.
>
> The book is published by the Mathematical Assn. of America
> and is available in the library here -- I will not say
> "available in better libraries everywhere", because I reserve
> that expression for strange and borderline useless books that
> are in the library here only because
> I came upon them and sent through a purchase order.   The useful books
> I order here are likely to be stolen, or at the least read
> until they fall apart.  My legacy to future generations of
> NYU library users will be the collection fo strange and
> marginally useless books I ahve bought, and I tend to that
> legacy ceaselessly.
>
> But I digress.
>
> The source given for the statement that faro evolved in 18th
> century France and "supposedly" took its name from a picture
> of a pharaoh on a card is The Oxford Guide to Card Games, by
> David Parlett, 1990, p. 78.
> The source for the statement as to its popularity in America
> is John Scarne, Scarne's New Complete Guide to Gambling, 1986, p. 267.
>
> GAT
>
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre",
> Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
>
> "We have seen the best of our time.  Machinations,
> hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us
> disquietly to our graves."  King Lear, Act 1, scene 2
> (Gloucester speaking).
>