"The Real McCoy"

[Jonathan Lighter]

My head, heart, gut, and right elbow tell me that the song makes more sense
if "real McCoy" was already in circulation. The existence of "real Mackay"
as a whisky slogan by 1856 makes that quite likely.

JL


On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 2:02 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      "The Real McCoy"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> OED records this spelling only from 1898.
>
> HDAS II tells more than anyone could possibly want to know about this
> phrase. One of those things is a reference to a purported "Irish ballad"
> about a husband bested by his violent wife.
>
> I called attention to a brief 1965 allusion to a 19th C. broadside that
> seemed to fill the bill - though in the form "Mackay." AFAIK the song has
> never been brought to the attention of lexicographers.
>
> It is included in the collection of the Irish folklorist P. W. Joyce (1827
> -1914) at
>
> http://www.itma.ie/joyce/scrapbooks/ballad-sheet-scrapbooks
>
> Look in Vol. II.
>
> Or read it here instead. I've silently corrected one or two egregious
> typos, others are sic. Stanzas 3 and 4 are each defective by one line:
>
>
>
> THE REAL M'COY
>
>
>
> You lads and you lasses draw near,
>
> I am going for to sing you a song,
>
> And if you attention pay
>
> I won=E2=80=99t detain you long;
>
> To my grief I married a wife,
>
> My fortune for to try =E2=80=93
>
> And the first of my misfortune
>
> Was to marry one Kitty M'Coy.
>
>
>
> CHORUS--
>
> Ri tiddy tal lal de la ra lee
>
>
>
> I was scarcely one week married,
>
> When my wife put me in a fright
>
> And when I came home to my break=E2=80=99t
>
> She was lying stupidly drunk;
>
> Says I you are a noted rogue
>
> Says she will you ask my eye,
>
> Says I you are a drunking maid
>
> For I=E2=80=99m the real M=E2=80=99Coy.
>
>
>
> My wife can drink like a fish in the sea
>
> She can also curse and swear
>
> She throws me like a dog in the corner
>
> The britches for to wear;
>
> She has me as tamed as a pig in a sty
>
> And I dare not say a word
>
> For fear of the real M=E2=80=99Coy.
>
>
>
> One night as me & my wife went out,
>
> She took the rambling rout
>
> And with my Sunday clothes
>
> She marched them up the spout;
>
> For the police she loudly cried
>
> And they marched me off to quod
>
> For she was the real M=E2=80=99Coy.
>
>
>
> When I came out of prison
>
> Half starved I staggered home
>
> I scarce had my hand on the latch
>
> When she walloped me with a broom
>
> The landlady seized me by the neck
>
> With her fist she blackened my eye
>
> And says she I=E2=80=99ll let you know
>
> That I am the real M=E2=80=99Coy.
>
>
>
> It was in a few days after
>
> My wide shewed me a great change
>
> Looking so ill I thought she was dead
>
> I sent for a medical skill
>
> She always grew worse and worse
>
> Till the very next day she died
>
> And when buried I proudly said
>
> There lies the real M=E2=80=99Coy.
>
>
>
>     Haly, Printer South Main Street, Cork.
>
> The Bodleian has additional, perhaps better, copies, but the links all seem
> to be broken. One however, printed by "P. Brereton, Printer, 1, Lr,
> Exchange, St, Dublin" is dated to "c.1867."
>
> JL
> --=20
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org