More RE: Further Antedating of "Real McCoy"

[Wilson Gray]

All this recalls to mind a supposed old, Highland-Scots saying in a
book that I came across in the tourist shop at an airport in Scotland
back in '61, something like:

There are only three men whose titles require the definite article:

The Pope
The King
The Chisholm (= the chief of Clan Chisholm)


I've found this same book in any number of libraries. It's The
Highland Clans, a catalog of the clans and their tartans by the
renowned Scottish author and historian, Sir Iain Moncreiffe of that
Ilk, bart.

-Wilson

On Sat, Jan 2, 2010 at 8:29 AM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      More RE: Further Antedating of "Real McCoy"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Here is the record from the National Library of Scotland catalogue:
>
> Title:   A new song call’d The real McCoy.
>
> Date(s):        [ca. 1870?]
> Publisher:      [Dublin] : P. Brereton Printer 1, Lr. Exchange St,
> Format:         Book
> Size etc:       1 sheet ([1] p.) : ill. ; 29 x 11 cm.
> Note:   Dated from examination of text and style.
>        First line reads: You lads and lasses draw near I’m going to sing a song.
>        In one column with an illustration above the title.
>
> Subject:        Ballads, English --Texts.
>        Broadsides --Ireland --Dublin --1801-1900.
>        Ballads --Ireland --Dublin --1801-1900.
>
> Consult in:     Rare Books & Music Reading Room (stored in George IV Bridge)
> Shelfmark:      Crawford.EB.3680
> Number of items:        1
> Status:         Available
>
> I guess, since the 1879 citation I found refers to a song called "The Real McCoy," it is reasonable to regard such a song, dated a1879, as the earliest known usage.  Whether the song referenced in 1879 is the same as the song described above is purely conjectural.
>
> In any case, I neglected in my original posting to note the obvious fact that the 1879 discovery strengthens the already-overpowering case against the popular theories that "real McCoy" derives from Kid McCoy, the Hatfields and the McCoys, a rumrunner named McCoy, Elijah McCoy, etc., etc.  It is likely that "real McCoy" is a variant of "real Mackay," documented in Scotland from 1856.
>
> Fred Shapiro
> Editor
> Yale Book of Quotations (Yale University Press)
>
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>



--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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