Long Truong 
input.translationElijah McCoy was born in 1844 in Ontario to formerly-enslaved parents from Kentucky. They saved enough to send him to Scotland to study mechanical #engineering. When he returned and couldn't get work in his field, he took a job as a train oilman and invented a method of automatic lubrication that eliminated the frequent stops trains had to make to oil up axles & bearings. Railroad companies asking for his product rather than copycat devices spawned the phrase "the real McCoy." #BlackHistoryMonth
Martin Vermeer FCD@fluxed Oops... me thinking it came from Star Trek.
Andrew Feeney@martinvermeer @fluxed Nope, that's not the real Real McCoy, this is.
Julia T@fluxed What a story! ❤️💔
Should be taught in every school.
Should be taught in every school.
LouD@juliatherese3 @fluxed indeed it should. I knew the phrase but not the origin. I learned something today!
Laura Cochran@fluxed Very interesting. Thanks for sharing!
Jon Wesselink@fluxed Let's go Ontario!
Grandpa Don
aBe@fluxed Happy to know where the name came from. I used to listen to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70XGtPttfss 🙂
Mc Sar & The Real McCoy It's On You (Official Video)
Peter Brown@fluxed it shouldn’t be too difficult to find out which is the case, as there is a considerable time period between one and the other, but I had understood it originated during prohibition, as a means of distinguishing real smuggled Scottish whisky from the domestic hooch which was being produced at the time.
Hetep 🌻💙🌵🐴🌊@fluxed Thank you. I didn't know that.
Kevin Barber@fluxed Just think: this guy invented a technology that threatened his own job!
Siderea, Sibylla Bostoniensis@KevinBarber @fluxed That's, like, every engineer ever.
Darryl Green
Mike McGraw
Blitzen@fluxed I was taught a different origin for this phrase. Thank you for educating me about this!
it's B! Cavello 🐝@fluxed I hadn’t heard that phrase, but I love it. Thank you for sharing this history!
Chris Dolunt ☀️🌱⚙️📖🎲@fluxed He lived in Detroit and is buried down the street from my house, at Detroit Memorial Park cemetery.
The cemetery was built outside the Detroit city limits in 1925 because Detroit's cemeteries were segregated. It was founded by a group of African-American businessmen who wanted a nice place where their families could be laid to rest.
There are also politicians, musicians, athletes, and other notable people buried there.
Mary M. Redoutey@fluxed Thanks for sharing that. I wondered where that saying came from.
Lorenzo "LO" Fuentes 805@fluxed the european american people were rotten to the core their ignorant thinking. in some case still exists today.
Lloyd Lemons@fluxed Thank you for sharing! Didn't someone in his lineage also teach Jim Beam a thing or two about making good bourbon?
@fluxed Sorry (prev. post) wrong family, but an equally enterprising young man.
The Life of Brian@fluxed When I hear 'the real McCoy', I think of this man as well as an old TV series with Richard Crenna and Walter Brennan and Kathleen Nolan.
Alex Reeves
Steve Katz
David Garcia@fluxed What a great story.. And another step in the unending process of re-configuring the of my own ignorance
OldBrushNewPaper@fluxed Oh, ho!!! A childhood mystery - SOLVED! Thank you so much!
Callalily@fluxed
Thank you for sharing this.
Thank you for sharing this.
Markus Redeker 🐘@fluxed Note that the history of the term “the real McCoy” is unclear (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_real_McCoy).
But the Wikipedia article agrees that Elijah McCoy may be the real “real McCoy”.
paramnesiac@fluxed Here's a write-up from an Ypsilanti, MI newsletter on Elijah and his invention which goes into the "Real McCoy" debate. https://aadl.org/ypsigleanings/19527
Tl;dr, the ads for Mackay's whiskey used the phrase in the 1850s, while the first use of the phrase for McCoy's oiler wasn't until the 1870s. Both items were popular and broadly known and respected. Since there's no records tracing the use of the phrase, there is no way to say which is the basis for the common, popular usage.
Scrapper_The_Coyote@fluxed nobody's really sure of that.
I still think it originated as a different pronunciation of "the real mackay" referring to a scottish whiskey since bearing lubrication on trains is too niche a thing for the saying to have spread very far into the general population, whereas whiskey is much more common a thing to know about
Joshua Chalifour
Russell 🏴🇺🇦🍉@fluxed Aha! I wondered where that phrase came from!
CavyherdWow. TIL!
risahustad@fluxed train history and turn of phrase origin stories all in one - my jam
ReallyCanadianFly@fluxed even if the legend about the real McCoy phrase is murky, the train oiling invention by the man is still pretty cool.
The Long Tail@fluxed confirmed false by https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-real-mccoy/
I'm all for celebrating #BlackHistoryMonth achievements, so let's be factual as well.
I'm all for celebrating #BlackHistoryMonth achievements, so let's be factual as well.
April 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈:FCKAFD::bst:@fluxed why does this face remind me of Christian Lindner, neurodiversity kicks
Marc Trius@fluxed always pleased to learn about an engineer who has spent some time on the shop floor. It makes for better engineers... Although the original reason in this case could hardly be worse.
Jeff Byrnes@fluxed @StillIRise1963 TIL! Super fucking cool.
Marty 🇨🇦@fluxed excellent! I never knew this story!
John Lusk@fluxed
Bears repeating.
Bears repeating.
J.Sʜᴀʀᴘ🌍🇺🇦Fʀᴇᴇᴅᴏᴍ&DᴇᴍᴏᴄʀᴀᴄʏThat's brilliant.