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Wednesday, August 18. 2010

The real MacKay

What's the origin of "the real McCoy"?


There are many theories - "folk etymologies," but this seems most likely: 



It is a corruption of the Scots "The real MacKay", first recorded in 1856 as: "A drappie o’ the real MacKay," and this is widely accepted as the origin.



MacKay (and the Irish McCoy and Magee) are all basically the same name. 

Posted by Gwynnie in Our Essays, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 17:02 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

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"MacKay (and the Irish McCoy and Magee) are all basically the same name."

If I were going to type that sentence somewhere, I'd use a pseudonym, too.
#1 bobby b on 2010-08-19 04:43 (Reply)
When I first seen the post and the label I thought you were going to ask where the Scotts learned to make their Elixir of the Gods "Scotch". Unfortunately that wasn`t your drift so I won`t be able to pass on that I read in a history of Scotch that they learned it from the Irish who distill theirs 3 times to the twice the Scotts do. The Irish learned how to distill from the Chinese apparently.
#2 Bob Devine on 2010-08-19 21:19 (Reply)

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