"_M'_Cullogh"

[Robin Hamilton]

My sense is that the " M' " variant spelling is and has been
characteristically Irish, while Scots restricts itself to either " Mc " or "
Mac ", which in Scots are simple orthographic variants with no significance
with regard to the sound represented.

Why this should be, other than that uz yins ur aw Jock Thamsin's bairns,
deponent knoweth not.

(I'm not sure how relevant this is, but the notorious Scottish outlaw Rob
Roy used as his passing-name a variant of what in full would read "Robin Roy
Macgregor Campbell", the Macgregors being a sept of the Campbells, and Rob
Roy's mother herself being a Campbell.   Given that the Macgregors were
distinguished from the Campbells mostly by being even *more murderous and
mental than the larger clan grouping, this has to say something about life
in late seventeenth and early eighteenth century Scotland.)

[The other] Robin

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Saturday, October 16, 2010 1:18 AM
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject:      "_M'_Cullogh"

> ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      "_M'_Cullogh"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> This abbreviation, _M'_, for Mac/Mc was official in the St. Louis
> Post-Dispatch, even for a famous name like that of Gen. Douglas
> _M'Arthur_, until the early 1960's
> --
> -Wilson

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