Another small coin

[Dennis R. Preston]

larry describes the 'case ace' (or other card) precisely from my (mostly
midwestern) poker-playing days.

dInIs

>At 9:54 AM -0500 10/12/00, Joan Houston Hall wrote:
>>A case quarter is a quarter (as opposed to two dimes and a nickel); one can
>>also have a case dime (as opposed to two nickels) or a case nickel (as
>>opposed to five pennies).  The terms are found especially frequently in
>>South Carolina.  (See DARE case n2 sense 2.)
>
>This somehow reminds me of the apparently unrelated use of "case" as
>a modifier in a different nominal compound:  when poker (and I assume
>other card game) players refer to the "case queen", "case 6", etc.
>The idea is that you know where the other three queens or sixes are
>during the playing out of a given hand (typically you can see them in
>your opponents' hands or your own, or you've seen them being
>discarded) but the fourth and last card of that denomination is dealt
>or sought.  ("I shouldn't have stayed in waiting for the case jack";
>"I hope she doesn't draw the case ace")   The AHD4 doesn't seem to
>have this sense (Steve K., are you listening?) and I haven't checked
>RHHDAS yet--but interestingly the OED has a clear precursor of this
>sense from a related game:
>
>U.S. In the game of faro, the fourth card of a denomination, when the
>other three have been taken from the dealing-box.
>
>There are no actual cites of this, but according to the OED, this
>sense gave rise to the expression 'to get/come down to cases', which
>strikes me as a somewhat speculative claim without specific support
>for it.
>
>larry


Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736