This class makes for good "cocktail chatter," Ms. Laverde said.

"I thought it was just cocktail chatter," he said, "but then she called and said, 'We have a slot for you.' "

They play the song again, but the guests quickly lose interest and resume their noisy cocktail chatter ("The Blob" (Reprise)).

As the cocktail chatter proceeded, the band stayed with background music, beginning with two Princeton songs.

People who drop a reference into cocktail chatter about making sure the hedges got trimmed at their place in Southampton are - well, not people like us.

But cocktail chatter is simply not the senator's style.

That's just our science officer's form of cocktail chatter.

And for months, much of the city's cocktail chatter has centered on a paternity suit filed against the Mayor last January.

She walked into a room full of people who were mingling, drinking and engaged in cocktail chatter.