[Ads-l] Mickey D's

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Sat Aug 1 22:23:42 UTC 2015


Otherwise "McDonald's," has been a minor conundrum for me, to the extent
that the pronunciation, "Mack Donal's," could be replaced by ''Mickey D's."
A few TV commercials shouldn't have been sufficient to motivate the change,
IMO, despite TV's ability to destroy one of my favorite slang oppositions:

_hamburger_ "black person"

vs.

_cheeseburger_ "white person,"

based upon what was once a clear distinction in trash-food tastes, now
relevant only for us old heads.

Older and/or hipper correspondents are, no doubt, familiar with the name,
Mickey "Guitar" Baker of the '50's R&B duo, Mickey & Sylvia, who had the
so-called "cross-over" hit, "Love Is Strange."

The late Mr. Baker' was born "McHouston Baker," in 1925.

Clearly, it's not necessarily that case that "Mc[Name]" will become "Mac(k)
(Name)" and it's not even a new development.

Youneverknow.

Goodbye, Johnny McBrown [Mack Brown] and Jimmy Mack Cracklin. [McCracklin]
of my lost youth! <sigh!>

Of course, given that nothing about language is totally straightforward, I
wouldn't be surprised to discover that Richard and Maurice McDonald,
founders of McDonald's, referred to as "Richard and Maurice Mac(k) Donald,"
were I to get into a discussion of the founder, in the wild.
-- 
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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