"Real McKay"

[Paul Johnston]

In Scotland, it's almost entirely rhyming with "sigh", and I have a feeling
the expression was taken over here with that.  The original is MacAoidh,
which is actually more like [m at xkWi], where [W] is an unrounded [u], but
both McCoy and McKye pronunciations could easily come from that.  To make
things more complicated, there could be dialectal forms giving the forms
rhyming with "say" (though I'd guess these are really spelling
pronunciation) and the Irish equivalent MacAoi, which would give McKee
pronunciations in most of the dialects I know about.

Paul Johnston
----- Original Message -----
From: "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2006 7:13 PM
Subject: Re: "Real McKay"


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Real McKay"
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
>
> How is "M(a)cKay" pronounced here? Does it rhyme with "say" or with
> "sigh"? My experience is that the pronunciation varies.
>
> -Wilson
>
> On 6/22/06, Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> > Subject:      "Real McKay"
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
> >
> > So now we have "real Mackay" from 1856 in Scotland, and "real McCoy"
from
> > 1891 in Manitoba.  The logical transitional spelling would be "real
McKay"
> > in Manitoba between 1856 and 1891, and indeed there is an example of
this
> > in Newspaperarchive from the very same Manitoba newspaper:
> >
> > 1875 _Manitoba Daily Free Press_ 8 Dec. 3 (Newspaperarchive)  The annual
> > meeting of the St. Andrew's Society was held in the schoolhouse, Portage
> > in Prairie, on the 30th ult. ... [long list of Scottish toasts and songs
> > mentioned] ... Songs followed, and a recitation, The real McKay, by Mr.
> > Melville.
> >
> > I acknowledge that the above suggested progression of spellings may be
too
> > neat, with the truth perhaps being more random.
> >
> > Fred Shapiro
> >
> >
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > 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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