"hunky-dory" < Sc. "unco dour" ?

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:35 AM -0500 11/28/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
>>Reading another thread's discussion of "hunky", I was inspired to check
>>out newspaperarchive's early cites for "hunky-dory" and found this:
>>
>>        Evening Gazette (Port Jervis,  N.Y.), August 4, 1870
>>        The slang expression of "hunky dory" is Scotch, and is a
>>        synonym of the Latin "non compos."  He is "unco dour in
>>        the uptak," is the full expression.
>>
>>Has anyone run across this purported etymology before?  I've heard the
>>Japanese "Honcho dori" theory, but this Scots derivation is a new one.  I
>>take it the Scots expression would be glossed as "very stubborn on the
>>uptake", though "non compos" obviously suggests a graver mental condition.
>>  This would seem to be precisely the opposite of the sense of "hunky-dory"
>>as it emerged in the 1860s ('satisfactory, in good condition').
>
>I've never seen this etymology before.
>
This does seem doubtful, as does the Japanese theory.  For yet
another one, check out
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mhunky.html

Larry