Sorry, but my vote goes to "The Real MacKay" (of which "The Real McCoy" is only a corruption).
I have come to this conclusion after serious research (ahem! ahem!), conducted when I was too doped up-gaga to do any of the multitudinous tasks I should have been attending to. So let me waste a little more of my time -- and yours -- explaining how I reached this momentous conclusion.
First, the initial clues, garnered from various postings here, and from brief discussions of The Issue on the net:
1) In a letter written in the 1880's (long before the appearance of the American term "the real McCoy) Robert Louis Stevenson used the term "the real MacKay." (Note: RLS was a SCOTCHMAN, born and raised in SCOTLAND.)
2) Crocodile's version mentions PAISLEY. (...it was produced as a cheaper imitation of the Real McCoy paisley..) Note: PAISLEY is a city in SCOTLAND, the city where the "paisley" was produced.
3) An interesting line from the pro-Elijah McCoy blurb: "In May 2, 1884, in Canada, McCoy traveled to SCOTLAND to serve as an apprentice engineer."
With a couple of clues in hand, I then went googling. What I discovered -- and this actually genuinely ticks me off -- proved to me that all these "word detectives" are actually lousy detectives. They never followed up on the Robert Louis Stevenson lead! If they had just gone to google.com, for example, they would have learned:
1) That the phrase "the real MacKay" has always been used in Scotland! Both before, and after, RLS used the term! I immediately ran across it in a comment on a hilarious(if largely incomprehensible) "Haime Page" for expat Scots: "Ah likeit, mind ye am no too sure if it's all the real macKay, still, it's funny."
Further along in my (ahem! ahem!) research, I see the following assertion (in an article denouncing the Elijah McCoy story as "the Fake McCoy"): "In the United Kingdom the saying is 'the real MacKay'" (that is,throughout the United Kingdom, not just in Scotland itself). The possible origin (which may appeal to you, Ish)? A Scotch whiskey made by A. & M. MacKay in Glasgow.
textbookleague.org
2) In Scotland, everybody and his grandmother seem to have the last name MacKay. A lot of very distinguished writers were named MacKay (including the author of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds; so were preachers, political leaders, and a humungous number of business-owners/entrepreneurs. (Re Paisley, in particular: at least half of Paisley's MPs are named MacKay. And although I ran across no reference at all to any "McCoy paisley," I am willing to bet there was at least one paisley-producing factory run by a MacKay.)
3) Bingo! Next, I find a reference to the Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, which reportedly contains this thought: "Maybe the real McCoy is a corruption of the real Mackay, a Scottish phrase that recalls disputes about who was the true chief of the MacKay clan."
4) Aha! Another search turns up three different sites -- one based in Scotland, another in Nova Scotia (New SCOTLAND, remember?), and the third right here in the USA -- all devoted to The Clan MacKay. Not surprisingly, on one of them, we find, emblazoned across the top of the page, the legend: "'Tis the real MacKay!"
And a brief explanation is provided (for an exhaustive -- and exhausting -- one, consult the URL):
"THE REAL MACKAY" HAS BECOME AN EVERYDAY expression to describe something genuine and reliable; it is a fair tribute to a clan which has always stood by its principles, even when such loyalty was bound to bring misfortune. In fact, the origin of the phrase was simply an attempt to distinguish between the overall chief of the name (the real Mackay) and the chieftain of an unruly junior branch which often gave trouble to the rest of the clan.
fiss.com
5) The clincher, for me, is this: MacKay is a corrupted spelling of the original Gaelic (MacAoidh). However, it is not pronounced the way it is written -- as Mack-Kay -- but as mc-EYE. It is easy to see how "Mc-EYE" could be corrupted into "McCoy." (Just say it out loud fast a couple of times, and it should be obvious.)
6) I would also argue that it is easy to see how the phrase was imported. Emigration from Scotland to North America was heavy. And guess who were (and possibly still are) the Big Shots in Nova Scotia!
Donald MacKay, First Lord Reay, was knighted Baronet of Nova Scotia when he acquired Anticosti Island in (then) Nova Scotia. Baronet of Nova Scotia is a hereditary title; Hugh William Mackay, 14th Lord Reay, present Chief of MacKay, is 14th Baronet of Nova Scotia.
chebucto.ns.ca
But is Hugh William the real MacKay? <g>
I rest my case.
Joan |
