The real McCoy

"The real McCoy" is an idiom and metaphor used in much of the English-speaking world to mean "the real thing" or "the genuine article", e.g. "he's the real McCoy". The phrase has been the subject of numerous false etymologies.

History

The phrase "The real McCoy" may be a corruption of the Scots "The real MacKay", first recorded in 1856 as: "A drappie o' the real MacKay", ("a drop of the real MacKay"). This appeared in a poem Deil's Hallowe'en published in Glasgow and is widely accepted as the phrase's origin.[1][2][3][4]

In 1881, the expression was used in James S. Bond's The rise and Fall of the 'Union club'; or Boy life in Canada. A character says, "By jingo! yes; so it will be. It's the 'real McCoy,' as Jim Hicks says. Nobody but a devil can find us there."[5]

The expression has also been associated with Elijah McCoy's oil-drip cup invention (patented in 1872).[6] One theory is that railroad engineers looking to avoid inferior copies would request it by name, inquiring if a locomotive was fitted with 'the real McCoy system".[4][6] This possible origin is mentioned in Elijah McCoy's biography at the National Inventors Hall of Fame.[7] The original appearance of this claim in print can be traced to an advertisement which appeared in the December 1966 issue of Ebony. The ad, for Old Taylor Bourbon whiskey, ends with the tag line: "...but the most famous legacy McCoy left his country was his name."[8] While the story in the ad copy bears the hallmarks of false etymology, its spread certainly reinforced a productive force tying the expression to the legacy of the inventor.

Alternative attributions include:

Kid McCoy

In the United States, the phrase became associated with boxer Kid McCoy.[6] Quinion notes that "It looks very much – without being able to say for sure – as though the term was originally the real Mackay, but became converted to the real McCoy in the U.S., either under the influence of Kid McCoy, or for some other reason."[4] This claim is dubious, however, as Kid McCoy was only nine years old when "the real McCoy" appeared in The Rise and Fall of the "Union club."[5]

References

  1. ↑ "Mackay prop. n.". Dictionary of the Scots Language (2004) Accessed 3 June 2016
  2. ↑ 2007 Oxford English Dictionary
  3. ↑ "The Deil's Hallowe'en: a poem by Young Glasgow". University of Glasgow library record. Retrieved 7 August 2013.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Quinion, Michael (12 February 2011). "World Wide Words: the Real McCoy". worldwidewords.org. Retrieved 15 June 2011.
  5. 1 2 Bond, James S. (1881). The rise and fall of the "Union club" or, Boy life in Canada. Yorkville, Ontario. p. 1. Retrieved 16 June 2011.
  6. 1 2 3 4 , 19 February 2011. Snopes.com. Retrieved 9 June 2013
  7. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 28 December 2008. Retrieved 13 November 2008. , 2002. National Inventors Hall of Fame. Retrieved 9 June 2013
  8. ↑ Ebony, December 1966. p. 157.
  9. 1 2 "The Real McCoy". The Phrase Finder. Retrieved 5 March 2011.
  • Casselman, William Gordon. "The Real McCoy". Bill Casselman's Canadian Word of the Day. Archived from the original on 27 April 2011. Retrieved 5 March 2011.
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