real MacKay
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Scots[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Attested in 1856 as “A drappie o’ the real MacKay” (A drop of the real MacKay).[1][2][3] Used as advertising slogan of G. MacKay & Co., Ltd., a whisky distiller.
Later attested 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson:[4]
- For society, there isna sae muckle, but there’s myself—the auld Johnson, ye ken—he’s the real Mackay…
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
- (idiomatic) The real McCoy, the genuine article, not an imitation.
Descendants[edit]
- the real McCoy
References[edit]
- ^ Scottish National Dictionary
- ^ 2007 OED
- ^ Susie Dent of the Oxford University Press, on February 8, 2008 broadcast of Countdown.
- ^ R.L.S.: Stevenson’s Letters to Charles Baxter, 1956, ed. De Lancey Ferguson and Marshall Waingrow, p. 125