Antedating of "Real McCoy"

[Jonathan Lighter]

As I explained in the pages of the _Atlantic Monthly_ many years ago.

  JL



Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Fred Shapiro
Subject: Re: Antedating of "Real McCoy"
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Just to state the obvious, my finding this 1891 citation for _real McCoy_
is the last nail in the coffin of the "Kid McCoy" theory of its etymology,
as well as disproving most of the other popular theories. It appears very
likely that _real McCoy_ is a variant on _real Mackay_, attested from
1856, and the real etymological question is where _real Mackay_ came from.

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS
Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press,
Yale Law School forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com
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