Texas Hold 'Em; Texas Leaguer; Mexican Stand-Off; Texas Butter; Texas Toast

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

Some more terms for the Dallas Morning News searches. Texas toast, anyone?  
DARE?...Texas Hold'em seems to be showing up in spam all over the  internet.
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_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_hold_'em_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_hold_'em) 
Texas hold 'em (or simply hold 'em or  holdem) is the most popular of the 
community card _poker_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker)  games. It is the 
most  popular _poker variant_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker_variant)  
played in _casinos_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casino)  in the  western _United 
States_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States) , and its _no-limit_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_limit_(poker))  form is  used in the main event 
of the _World Series of  Poker_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Series_of_Poker)  (abbreviated WSOP), widely recognized as the world championship of the  
game.
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(OED)
b. Mexican stand-off, no chance to benefit (or  spec. to defend oneself); 
hence, a general stalemate (cf. sense 3).  slang.  
1891  N.Y. Sporting Times 19 Sept. 4/3 ‘Monk’ Cline, who got a Mexican 
stand-off from Dave Rowe has  signed with Louisville. 
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(OED)
Texas
 The name of one of the United States,  formerly a province of Mexico, then 
for a short time an independent republic.  
1.  Also texas.    a. Western U.S. The uppermost structure of  a 
river-steamer, containing the officers' quarters. Also attrib.  
1853  Pen & Pencil I. 789/2 The  roof of the cabin which offered a splendid 
promenade, and the spectacle of a  second edifice of state-rooms, surrounded by 
a broad promenade and curiously  denominated ‘Texas’. 1857  _F. L. OLMSTED_ 
(http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-o.html#f-l-olmsted)  Journey Texas 27 
To this Texas,  inveterate card-players retire on Sundays. 1872  _SCHELE DE 
VERE_ (http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-s.html#schele-de-vere)  
Americanisms 128 The cabins  below this [the upper deck] and above the grand saloon, 
where the officers of  the boat are accommodated, also belong to Texas.  1875  _
‘MARK  TWAIN’_ (http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-t2.html#mark-twain)  
in Atlantic Monthly Feb. 220/2 A  tidy, white-aproned, black ‘texas-tender’, 
to bring up tarts and ices and  coffee. 1883  Life on Mississippi iv. 43 The  
boiler deck, the hurricane deck, and the texas deck are fenced and ornamented 
 with clean white railings. 1889  _FARMER_ 
(http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-f.html#farmer)  Dict. Amer., Texas  tender, the waiter on the Texas or 
upper deck of a Mississippi steamer. 1901  _W. CHURCHILL_ 
(http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-c2.html#w-churchill)  Crisis xxi, He escorted the  ladies 
to quarters in the texas.
b.  ‘The elevated gallery, resembling a louver or clearstory, in a 
grain-elevator’.  
1909  in Cent. Dict. Suppl.
2. In  names of native Texan plants, animals, etc.:
as Texas  bead-tree, blue-grass, flax, grackle, millet, snakeroot, etc. Texas 
fever, a North  American form of bovine piroplasmosis (red-water) first 
identified in Texas,  indicated by a high fever, reddish urine, and an enlarged 
spleen, and caused by  a protozoan parasite, Babesia bigemina, which is 
transmitted by the  cattle tick; Texas  leaguer Baseball  (now rare), a fly ball that 
falls to the ground between the infield and  the outfield and results in a base 
hit; Texas  longhorn, a bull or cow  belonging to a breed once common in 
Texas, distinguished by long horns and able  to thrive in dry regions; also 
transf. (see quot. 1908); Texas  Ranger [_RANGER_ 
(http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/crossref?query_type=word&queryword=texas&first=1&max_to_show=10&sort_type=alpha&se
arch_id=74Py-1p8d7N-5455&result_place=1&xrefword=ranger&ps=n.&homonym_no=1)  
n.1 3a], a member of the state constabulary of Texas (formerly, of  certain 
locally mustered regiments in the federal service during the Mexican  War); 
Texas Tower [so called from its  resemblance to a Texas oil rig], one of a chain 
of radar towers  built along the eastern coast of the U.S.  
1866  2nd Ann. Rep. Missouri State Board of Agric.  (1867) 16 Another 
pest..is the *Texas fever’,..or ‘Texas  murrain’, as it is variously known. 1902  
Westm. Gaz. 2 June 10/2 It is  officially announced that the cattle disease 
prevailing in Rhodesia is Texas  fever which is spread by ticks.   
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 1905  Sporting Life (Philad.) 7 Oct. 9/4 A bit of bad coaching euchered him 
out of one bingle the other  afternoon, when a *Texas Leaguer from his bat had 
to be chalked down a force out  instead of a hit. 1935  _J. T. FARRELL_ 
(http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-f.html#j-t-farrell)  Judgement Day viii. 
185 A dumpy  texas-leaguer over third base placed runners on first and second. 
1977  Verbatim May 5/2 We are no  longer besieged with such terms as ‘hot 
corner’, ‘keystone’, ‘Texas Leaguer’,  ‘flyhawk’, ‘maskman’, and ‘grasscutter’
.   
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 1908  Pacific Monthly July 19/1 Pink  got here about the same time but he 
come of old *Texas-longhorn stock. a1918  _G.  STUART_ 
(http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-s5.html#g-stuart)  Forty Years on Frontier (1925) II. 178 None 
of our cattle were Texas longhorns.  1946  Nat. Geogr. Mag. Jan. 17/1  Cattle 
then were the rangy Texas Cattle thmore head, horns, and tail than thick, 
juicy  steaks. 1972  _K.  BONFIGLIOLI_ 
(http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-b3.html#k-bonfiglioli)   Don't point that Thing at Me xiii. 101 The bleached 
skeleton of a Texas Longhorn..beside a faint track.   
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 1858  _SIMMONDS_ (http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-s3.html#simmonds)  
Dict. Trade, *Texas  Millet, the Sorghum cernuum, a prolific bread-corn 
cultivated in the  tropics.   
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 1846  Whig Almanac 1847  19/1 Capt. Samuel Walker, at the head of a small 
company of  *Texas Rangers, left Point Isabel. 1911  Everybody's Mag. Sept. 
354/1 Two  Texas rangers faced Antonio Carrasco and his seventeen thieves sometime 
in  December of 1910. 1943  B. HOUSE I  give you Texas 31 A city was 
threatened by mob  violence, so a telegram was sent to the governor to rush a force of 
Texas  Rangers to the scene. 1980  E. BEHR  Getting Even x. 114 The Chairman  
was wearing a Texas Ranger hat the American President had given him.   
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1954  Tuscaloosa (Alabama) News 13 Aug. 3 (caption)  Here is a closeup of a 
section of one of the ‘*Texas  Towers’..being built offshore along the 
Atlantic coast. Towers, named for oil  rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, will be built 
along the continental shelf. 1971  _S. E. MORISON_ 
(http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-m4.html#s-e-morison)  European Discovery Amer.: Northern Voy. xix.  
653 The Gulf Stream flows within twelve miles of Cape Hatteras,  and the 
counter-currents, strong winds, and shifting sands are a menace to  navigation even 
today. A Texas Tower was established off Diamond Shoals, the  most dangerous, 
in 1966.   
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3.  Used in various depreciatory collocations.  
1905,  etc. [see Texas Leaguer, sense 2 above]. 1942  _BERREY_ 
(http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-b2.html#berrey)  & VAN  DEN BARK Amer. Thes. Slang 
§926/1 Texas  butter, a gravy made with flour and water in meat grease. 1944  
_R. F.  ADAMS_ (http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-a.html#r-f-adams)  
Western Words 164/2 Texas  cakewalk, a hanging. Ibid., Texas gate, a makeshift 
gate made of barbed wire fastened  to a pole. 1962  Amer. Speech XXXVII. 266  
Arizona stop; Texas stop, n. Slowing down, but not  making a full stop at a stop 
sign. 1968-70  Current Slang (Univ. S. Dakota) III-IV. 125 Texas 
strawberries, n. Red beans.New Mexico State. 1969  Britannica Bk. of Year (U.S) 801/1 
Texas toast, a thick slice of bread warmed and covered  with butter. 1975  _D.  
BAGLEY_ (http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-b.html#d-bagley)  Snow Tiger 
xi. 97 A Texas  nightingale isn't a bird... It's a donkey. This is a similar New 
Zealand joke. 1976  BOOT &  _THOMAS_ 
(http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-t.html#thomas)  Jamaica 76/2 It certainly had  more flair than old LBJ taking 
a table of journalists and staffers into the  men's room, there to reduce 
them to awe and wonderment at the size of his  whopping great Texas trouser 
snake. 1979  G. SWARTHOUT Skeletons 172 They call it a  ‘Texas horserace’. Blaise 
and his deputies sneaked the Mexicans..to the edge of  town and told them to 
hot-foot it for the line. They'd give them an hour's head  start. Then they'd 
come after them, mounted... If Blaise and his boys caught up  with them on this 
side, it was their bad luck... The Mexs didn't make  it.