Recall the man who proposed the letter R in one of the bargaining games: as long as the partner heard—and it is obvious that he heard—the letter R is the only extant proposal, and, being unchallenged, it may coordinate in default of any counterproposal nearly as well as if it had been explicitly accepted. (Even denial of it by the other party might not manage to dislodge its claim to prominence but rather simply prove his awareness of it, as long as no rival claim was made that created ambiguousness.)

DEFINE: Explains how prominence in bargaining works: a salient proposal coordinates behavior not by explicit acceptance but by being the only unchallenged alternative on the table.

Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, loc. 201