Newsgroups: sci.lang
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From: stevemac@bud.indirect.com (Tennessee Ernie Fnord)
Subject: Linguistic history of Mc & Mac in Scotland?
Message-ID: <D7rH3L.CBJ@indirect.com>
Sender: usenet@indirect.com (Internet Direct Admin)
Organization: Bavarian Illuminati
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 1995 20:04:32 GMT
X-Disclaimer: I'm not making this up!
Lines: 29

  When I was a kid, I always heard tha "'Mac' is Scottish, and 'Mc' is 
Irish", but this never rang true to me.  Our family name is "McGregor", 
but family tradition was that our ancestors came from Scotland.
  After my parents retired, they visited Nova Scotia (i.e., New 
Scotland), and looked up some distant relatives named MacGregor, whom 
they knew about only because my grandmother used to exchange Christmas 
cards with one of them.
  One of the places they went was the cemetary where many of my ancestors 
are buried.  They noticed that the name was spelled variously "McGregor" 
and "MacGregor".  People stuck the "a" in or left it out as they saw fit.
  I saw fit to stick it in, so my son and daughter and I are the only 
MacGregors in the family, while my Father, stepmother, brother, and lots 
of cousins are McGregors.

  This tendency to be very lax in the spelling of such names appears to 
have caused some curious customs.  I remember when I was growing up (back 
in the '50s) that names beginning with "Mac", "Mc", and "M'" were all 
alphabetized as though they were "Mac" in some places (like library 
card-catalogs).  Nowadays, alphabetization can be done by computer, but 
trying to teach a computer all the exceptions like this can be a pain, 
the custom now is to do it strictly by the letters that are there.
  Still, when you buy alphabetic index-card or notebook dividers, there's 
often an "Mc" card to go between the "M" and "N" cards.

-- 
      < 0 >       In this country alone,
    /=-=-=-=\       three people out of four make up 75% of the population.
  /-=-=-=-=-=-\
/=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=\       Coincidence?  Conspiracy?  =You= be the judge!
