Further Antedating of "Real McCoy"

[Jonathan Lighter]

WorldCat lists "A New Song Call'd The real McCoy,"  printed  by P. Brereton,
Dublin,  about 1870. It commences, "You lads and lasses draw near I'm going
to sing a song." The complete text seems not to be available.

Its apparent transatlantic popularity in the 1870s suggests that the song's
title may have been the effective source of the phrase.

JL




On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 8:03 PM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Further Antedating of "Real McCoy"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I have previously antedated "real McCoy" (OED 1916) back to 1891.  Here's
> earlier:
>
> 1879 _Sarnia_ (Ontario) _Observer_ 14 Mar. 5 (Google News)  Mr. Wm. Eveland
> sang "The Real McCoy" in capital style.
>
> Fred Shapiro
> Editor
> Yale Book of Quotations
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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