The real Mackay(1871)

[Sam Clements]

Michael,

Lighter seems to suggest that  the 'real McKay' of the 1856 cite and the
1880 ''rale Mackay' are both referring to the whiskey.  While any reasonable
linguist would assume that the Scots were talking about "the real thing" in
a general sense, it isn't
conclusive.  That's why he added <b.> to indicate usuages that clearly meant
'the real thing' in a metaphorical sense.  The first of those that he cites
is Stevenson in 1883

I meant only that my find would antedate his 'b.' sense of the phrase.

SC
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Quinion" <TheEditor at worldwidewords.org>
To: "Sam Clements" <sclements at NEO.RR.COM>; <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, December 07, 2003 4:29 PM
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] The real Mackay(1871)


> Sam Clements wrote:
>
> > At the conclusion of the poem, the starred term was explained thusly:
> >
> >       <<An expression used in some parts of Scotland, equivalent to
saying,
> > "it's not the real thing.">>
> >
> > This would appear to predate the RHDAS cite for the meaning of "the
> > genuine article; the real thing."  They have RL Stevenson's 1883 cite
> > as first.
>
> A useful datum concerning transmission of the saying to the USA. The
> evidence suggests that the expression was indeed Scots. The earliest
> example is from 1856, recorded in the Scottish National Dictionary:
> 'A drappie [drop] o' the real MacKay'. The same work says that in
> 1870 the saying was adopted by Messrs G Mackay and Co, whisky
> distillers of Edinburgh as their advertising slogan. It's presumably
> the same expression that Stevenson and other writers of the period
> used (in that spelling), which later changed to "the real McCoy" in
> the USA and was later re-introduced into the UK in that spelling.
>
> --
> Michael Quinion
> Editor, World Wide Words
> E-mail: <TheEditor at worldwidewords.org>
> Web: <http://www.worldwidewords.org/>
>
>