Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Showdown

 In westerns of old, a showdown is often what follows a remark such as "Them's fightin' words, pardner." I'm guessing showdown predates the mythological rise of "The American West," but what do I know? (Not as much as I sometimes think I do!)

Time to check it out...

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Well, this is interesting! The Online Etymological Dictionary says showdown first popped up in 1873 as a poker-playing term:

...a slang term for the act of laying down the hands face-up, from show (v.) + down (adv.). Figurative sense of "final confrontation" is by 1904.

On the one hand (so to speak!), the term does seem to have arisen in the 19th-century American West On the other hand, calling a confrontation in the middle of main street before the turn of the 20th century a showdown probably isn't accurate.

I did find at least one written example of showdown in the "Draw, pardner!" sense in a 1895 book Second Book of Tales by Eugene Field, in a short story titled "The Wooing of Miss Woppit." I've included the snippet where it appears below, because the stilted Western vernacular is rather fun to read:

And finally, here's a little four-minute clip from  the 1958 movie Showdown at Boot Hill with Charles Bronson. This scene features, yep, a showdown... not on the street, but rather in a hotel restaurant. The end result (bad guy down, good guy standing) is about what you'd expect from a Western movie of this vintage. 

Enjoy!