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From: alderson@netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III)
Subject: Re: Linguistic history of Mc & Mac
In-Reply-To: pooka@access5.digex.net's message of 23 Apr 1995 20:35:50 -0400
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Date: Mon, 24 Apr 1995 18:11:08 GMT
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In article <pooka.798682960@access5> pooka@access5.digex.net
(Louis Emmet Mahoney) writes:

>kw1247@albnyvms.bitnet (KEN W) writes:

>>I was always led to believe that Mc was Irish and Mac was Scottish.

>That's folklore.  They are Gaelic in origin, and there are Mac-Whoevers in
>both places.  The English spelling depends on the fancy of he who anglicised
>the name.

Indeed, I have even seen Scottish names such as M'Kinnon and M'Kenzie, with no
written <(a)c> at all.
-- 
Rich Alderson   You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary
                of a strange language, and which so excites the amateur philo-
                logists, itching to derive one tongue from another that they
                know better: a word that is nearly the same in form and meaning
                as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew, or
                what not.
                                                --J. R. R. Tolkien,
alderson@netcom.com                               _The Notion Club Papers_
