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"The real McCoy" is a slang expression that means the genuine article, the real thing. I don't hear it used much anymore but I came across it recently, which made me wonder about its origin. I thought its origin was in the legendary Hatfield-McCoy feud, but I was wrong.
In the United States, McCoy seems to have originally meant a good quality whiskey or beer (ca. 1908), so I would guess that McCoy was the maker's name. Also in the United States, the expression "the real McCoy" seems to have first appeared in a 1922 Collier's magazine article, "'At's the real McCoy you got there, brother!. . .Comes right down from Canada!", but it was another use -- or so it has been suggested -- that inculcated the expression into American slang.
According to the New Orleans Picayune (March 24, 1946), "'The real McCoy' came from the underworld. . . .The term originally was applied to heroin brought in from the island of Macao off the coast of China. . . .It was not cut. Dope addicts found out the stuff from Macao was the real Macao," and as often happens with our language, repetitive mispronunciation becomes the new pronunciation and the spelling reflects the pronunciation -- Macao became McCoy and "the real Macao" became "the real McCoy."
Alas, the history of the phrase doesn't end -- or even begin -- with heroin. Two other possible origins are these: In an article in Collier's magazine (1924), appearing 2 years after the first noted above, it was written, "The lady guest was likewise the real McCoy, as soothin' to the eyes as belladonna." My favorite origin, however, is this one: According to a reader of the Chicago Daily News (December 7, 1936), in the 1870s (and likely earlier) there was often sung in Ireland a folk ballad in which an irate wife proclaims herself the head of the household with the assertion, "I'm the real McCoy."
Do you remember this expression? Do you know of other possible origins for it? Let us know by writing us.
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