Where did "the real McCoy" come from?

Where did this saying come from?


I realize I’m generalizing here, but as in most cases, I don’t care.
-Dave Barry

There’s an anecdote that a boxer known as “Kid McCoy” was drinking in a bar. Another customer felt that McCoy looked too young to be a professional fighter and kept harassing him by claiming he was lying. Eventually he challenged McCoy to step outside, where McCoy knocked him out with a single punch. When he was revived he supposedly said “I guess he was the real McCoy.”

From Wm and Mary Morris’ wonderful book, Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins:

There’s a variety of theories.

  • “Kid” McCoy was a famed prize ring and barroom battler of the 1890s, and was taunted by a heckler that if he wa the “real McCoy” he’d put up his dukes and prove it.

  • An Irish balad of the 1870s, in which an irate wife says she’s head of the household, “the real McCoy.”

  • A brand of Scotch whisky called “the Real Mackay”… or, alternately, a brand of Scottish wool by the same name

  • Bill McCoy, a rum runner of the 1920s, whose product was always right off the boat

  • From the famous feuding clan, the McCoys who fought with the Hatfields. (The Morrises reject this one as implausible.)

They conclude that the origin is most likely “Kid McCoy,” who was world welterweight champion from 1890 to 1900. It was a common practice for an aspiring young fighter to take the name of a more famous fighter (at least as long as he stayed in the minor leagues, so to speak)… For instances, Jack Dempsey’s real name was William Harrison Dempsey, but he took on the name Jack Dempsey in the ring, because there was a prior famous Jack “the Nonpareil” Dempsey.

Thus, Kid McCoy eventually had to bill himself as Kid “The Real” McCoy to distinguish from the imitators.

A man by the name of McCoy invented the drip oiler, used mainly, at the time, the
railroads. Many copies were made, but were not as good as the original. Hence the
asking…is it the real mccoy?


If you can’t convince them, confuse them.
Harry S. Truman

Banks, I have a sneaking suspicion that, if there were any credibility whatsover to that origin story, it would have been mentioned by the Morrises or by Partridge.

  1. The origin is unknown.

  2. It was originally MacKaye.

  3. It is at least as old as 1883, and probably Scottish.


John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams

John, your reference is… ?

The 2nd Supplement to the OED. (And, I suppose, the OED2).

Didn’t we have all this a few months ago?


John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams

I’ve seen this explanation corroborated by a calendar page at the US Patent and Trademark office.

Elijah McCoy, a child of escaped slaves, invented his Steam Engine Lubricator on August 6, 1872. (US Patents 129,843 & 130,305.)

He was raised in Canada, where his parents had escaped to. He was then educated in Great Britain. He returned to the US, but despite his college degree could only get a menial job. It was there that he saw grease monkeys, boys or small men, who climbed around the moving parts of steam engines. Quite often, there would be casualties amongst the grease monkeys. This inspired McCoy to invent his automatic lubricators.

He later formed his own company, having invented several other useful devices. There of course were imitators, whose lubricators weren’t of as good of quality. So when companies bought their engine lubricators, they asked, “Is this the real McCoy?”

Now that I got my Lighter, American Slang, Vol II for Christmas, I can give a summary of his explanation(s).

In short: It probably came from the Scottish whiskey family(1856-A drappie o’ the real McKay being the earliest usage in print.

In the US the usage can be found in print only beginning around 1915. And it possibly came from the fighter’s name. But possibly not. As an interesting aside, Lighter shows the use of McCoy in the US from 1902 used as meaning money in gambler slang.

He says, further, that the assertions concerning the inventor of the train lubricator are rather more recent in origin and unsubstantiated in print. Again, as an aside, he says it is interesting that McCoy, the black train guy, lived for a while in Scotland.

I saw it on the History Channel. That Dude wouldn’t lie.

:slight_smile:

I saw that too–Sam Waterston from Law and Order was giving the little lesson between commercials.

Quix