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Regarding names like McNeil or McDonald and such, twice recently I have been asked to move the lowercase c up so that the top of the lowercase letter aligns up with tops of the other two uppercase letters to either side of it like MᶜNeil or MᶜDonald, or even so that it sits above them like in M cNeil or M cDonald.

I do not recall seeing this done in most comparable situations.

Do you know why some might consider this necessary ... is it merely a matter of preferred style? And is the history of the different formats known?

Edwin Ashworth
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Colleen Kelly
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5 Answers5

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I believe this is because the name element (now) usually expressed "Mc" is an abbreviation for "Mac"; at one time, superscript (often with an underline or under dots) was a common way of writing abbreviations without resort to an apostrophe. This is preserved in the symbol № for "number".

You can see an example of this in the signature on the letter below, abbreviating "Nathaniel" (from Wikimedia Commons):

enter image description here

Writing Mc as MC therefore preserves the original, "true" form of the name in a way that Mc does not (as it does not indicate the abbreviation).

There is also a discussion here about the aesthetic and legibility benefits of the superscript c, for more formal type-setting.

KillingTime
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1006a
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    At one time this style of writing abbreviations was used much more widely that just for names. For example https://archive.org/stream/TheGenevaBible1560/geneva_bible1560#page/n6/mode/1up contains many examples with the superscript printed above the preceding letter rather than to its right, like "ye" for "the", "wc" for "which", etc, etc. The original purpose seems to have been to save space, when paper and vellum were expensive and scarce commodities. – alephzero Jun 30 '16 at 02:01
  • @alephzero, I hadn't seen/noticed the right-on-top version--thanks for the link. I tried to convey your point about the general practice extending beyond names with the "No." example. I believe the (US?) convention of using superscript for the letters in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. is also a relic of this practice, though those aren't exactly substituting for an apostrophe. The "Nath'l" example was just the first clear, high-res, open use-licensed example I could find in English. – 1006a Jun 30 '16 at 03:18
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    @alephzero, the y in ye is not a y it's a thorn and it's pronounced th. It's a lost letter in English. – Separatrix Jun 30 '16 at 14:54
  • @Separatrix Historically, that is true. In the source alephzero linked to here, however, the printed glyph is very clearly a ⟨y⟩, not a ⟨þ⟩. By 1560, an actual ⟨y⟩ was used to represent what had historically been thorns. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Oct 03 '17 at 19:23
  • This is nonsense. Mc is read as Mac, without confusion in English-speaking countries today. Hence it preserves the abbreviation. The raised ‘c’ only preserves an alternative historical way of doing this. It is now completely unnecessary except in period drama. – David Aug 01 '22 at 19:07
  • Man, but that's an excellent acknowledgment letter! – Conrado Jul 31 '23 at 14:56
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Pronunciation.

enter image description here

The 'upper-C' is a type of diacritical mark. In the 'good old days' this used to have a line under the superscript C called macron. All these tend to alter the actual pronunciation of the name.

All this is to differentiate between Mick and Mack. The 'upper-C' is denoting the pronunciation to be Mack (as is Old MacDonald).

It should also be noted that it is archaic and doesn't really matter anymore.

  • MacDonald
  • McDonald
  • Mc̄Donald
  • Mc̱Donald
  • MᶜDonald
  • Mc̱Donald

Mc example

If you really want to get into it, look up: punctum delens, lenites, etc.

KillingTime
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Tucker
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    Mc is short for Mac, which is Gaelic for 'son of'. Although 'mick' is considered Irish and 'mack' Scottish, they have the same root. – AmI Jun 29 '16 at 22:07
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    Regarding Mc/Mac pronunciation I think other factors take precedence. See article at http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/joe-mc-what.html?m=1 which says it depends on stress patterns of the following syllables. Indeed my experience (as an Irish person) is that I treat Mc/Mac/Mc-with-the-underbar as interchangeable as its pronunciation depends entirely on second part of the name. – k1eran Jun 29 '16 at 22:46
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    @Aml Both regions pronounce it as 'mack' (or maybe even 'mock')

    The position of the letter has nothing to do with pronunciation.

     – James Jun 30 '16 at 16:25
  • @James No necessarily. I'm a McG name holder myself, my surname coming from the Scottish Highlands. We take our hereditary very seriously, and we've traced our decedents back quite a bit (1600s, I believe). My last name is pronounced 'mick', not 'mack'. In our older documents, usually dated from before 1800s, our surname had superscript 'c', which different us from non-superscript 'c' holders despite our names being the same. It also doesn't help that we're from the same exact town in the same exact region and migrated to the same part of the USA at about the same time. Coincidence? – Tucker Jun 30 '16 at 16:32
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    I have never, ever heard the idea that it was aiming to affect pronunciation. Someone will have to come up with some sort of reference for that. – Fattie Jun 30 '16 at 16:56
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    @tucker as someone who was taught Irish for more years than I care to remember I know how to pronounce 'mac', which means 'son of' in this context. It's never pronounced 'mick' and I can only imagine this happened due to people with your surname no longer speaking the language. You can pronounce it 'mick' if you like and you'll be neither right nor wrong. – James Jun 30 '16 at 20:34
  • @James I think that was exactly my point. It was used to differentiate, but no longer matters. Still, I am struggling to find sources that are not opinions, speculations, or hearsay. I had no idea how hard it is. Maybe I should start looking at Gaelic etymology sites? However, I am sure because when looking at genealogy papers, there was always a known difference between Mac, Mc, Mc̱, etc. If an ancestor had Mc̱, it was likely a relation. Others would need further investigation. – Tucker Jul 01 '16 at 02:39
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    @Tucker It seems more likely that in your family the practice of (consistently) writing the name with a raised-underbarred c coincided with the practice of pronouncing it with an /ɪ/ rather than an /ə/ in the first syllable. I don’t believe there is any general correlation between these two practices, though. In Gaelic (Irish or Scottish), the nominative has Mac /mək/, while the genitive has Mhic /vɪkʲ/. I suspect the different vowel in the English version may be a confusion of the nominative and genitive vowels in the Gaelic versions, though that’s only my own speculation. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Oct 03 '17 at 19:28
  • @JanusBahsJacquet I don't doubt your observation about my family being consistent with our spelling but remember that Irish and English have different languages. I think that one might need to understand the various aspects of the Irish way of writing and take into note things like Fadas, séimhiú, etc. In those times writing was not uniformed as it is today and those traditions carried over, but the initial reason was for pronunciation. Perhaps this might be of some help in clarifying this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonant_mutation – Tucker May 13 '18 at 16:08
  • @Tucker I don’t really think the actual Irish way of writing such names plays much of a part—in Irish, after all, the names are almost ubiquitously written out as separate words, and there are no sínte fada or séimhithe in the word Mac. The following name is lenited in the genitive, of course, but not in the nominative… and it would be fairly odd for the ponc to be transferred from there over to the c in Mac. I don’t really understand what you mean by “and those traditions carried over, but the initial reason was for pronunciation”. – Janus Bahs Jacquet May 13 '18 at 16:22
  • @JanusBahsJacquet I meant that macrons are used to alter the pronunciation of letters and suggesting that certain writing habits were borrowed over since there are obvious connections between the Irish, Scottish and English forms of spelling during the times where these might have mattered. I've been going through how macrons are used to alter pronunciations and found that I know little. Perhaps with more research I can figure it out. For the last part, I meant that the tradition of retaining the macron as a form of spelling the name continued instead of its original purposes (pronunciation). – Tucker May 13 '18 at 16:55
  • Oh, I see your point now. Yes, that is certainly one use. Perhaps more relevant than macrons here is the practice, going all the way back to Roman times, of abbreviating common words by replacing vowels (and sometimes entire syllables) with little squiggles and lines, known as scribal abbreviations. Reducing Mac to something with a dot, line, or squiggle is perfectly in keeping with that tradition. – Janus Bahs Jacquet May 13 '18 at 17:02
  • @JanusBahsJacquet Yes, I think the other answer alludes to this. It might also be worth noting that every time the c̱ comes along, the key word 'transliteration' is not far away. So, maybe a combination of both? It started off as a pronunciation, but over time it changed and is now what it is because of style rather than anything else. – Tucker May 13 '18 at 17:27
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The computer killed the middlce case c, a raised c with 2 small lines underneath it. It was commonly available in old printing type faces but it was lost in conversion to computers. My family always used the middle case, but I have not found how to get it on the computer, though I have seen a a few times.

Michael McFall
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    I suspect that the demise predated the computer by at least 50 years, and is more likely to relate to the introduction of movable type. And today with the right software you can put the c wherever you like in a document, or at least I can. – David Aug 01 '22 at 19:15
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... twice recently I have been asked to move the lowercase c up so that the top of the lowercase letter aligns up with tops of the other two uppercase letters to either side of it like MᶜNeil or MᶜDonald, or even so that it sits above them like in M cNeil or M cDonald.

I do not recall seeing this done in most situations.

Do you know why it would be necessary?

You could ask the person telling you...

This has nothing to do with the English language. The person paying you, or otherwise having authority over you, is telling you to do this. If that person also wanted it in green ink in Gothic script, then your job is to do it.

There was never, in history, a committee that sat down and cast in tablets of stone the precise position of that letter "c".

It is a matter of desired style.

Greybeard
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  • If 'This has nothing to do with the English language' the correct procedure is to CV rather than answer. Nowadays, the requirement is doubtless POB, but orthographics / typography is a grey area on ELU. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 31 '23 at 10:58
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Putting in my oar on the Mick/Mack controversy: My family have always pronounced Mc as Mick—although the vowel is elided so quickly that it's really a schwa. My understanding is that it is indeed an abbreviation of Mac, but this is the preferred spelling and pronunciation among the Scots who emigrated to Ireland beginning in the 16th century. And yes, I have always been taught to write it as a superscript with a macron under it, although I rarely see that in type.

An exception is in names where the actual surname following the prefix begins with a vowel, as in McIntyre: in these cases Mc is pronounced Mac, and also becomes the stressed syllable.

(Everyone I know with this type of name identifies as Scots-Irish; I am not sure about native Irish names, but I believe it's not so common: O'– meaning pretty much the same thing. But I have seen the name of the legendary hero Fionn Mac Cumhaill spelled Finn M'Cool in popular fiction, and I would assume here also the apostrophe would be pronounced as a schwa.)

Bruce McKillip
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    The stress does not necessarily move with vowel-initial patronymics. McAleese (from Mac Giolla Íosa) retains the Gaelic stress /mækəˈliːs/, for example, as do McAuley (and the first name Macauley; from Mac Amhalghaidh), MacAuliffe (from Mac Amhlaoibh), McOwen (from Mac Eoghainn), etc. Conversely, some names where the patronymic begins with a consonant have—at least sometimes—moved to initial stress, like McNamara (Mac na Mara ‘son of the sea’), which is varyingly stressed on the first, second, or third syllable; more here. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Oct 03 '17 at 19:44
  • What controversy? The question is about raising the ’c’ in Mc. Please pay attention. – David Aug 01 '22 at 19:11
  • As an English person whose mother's maiden name, and therefore that of many of my cousins, starts with Mc (sometimes written with the raised 'c') I have always pronounced it with a sound much closer to 'muck' rather than 'mack' and certainly nothing like 'mick'. It's not exactly 'muck' it's more like a sound without a vowel. When names are written with the full 'Mac' that tends to be pronounced as 'Mack' as does the waterproof overcoat 'mac' short for 'macintosh' but I've never heard anyone pronounce 'Mc' as 'mick'. – BoldBen Aug 02 '22 at 12:58
  • There's a lot of variation in unstressed vowels across English dialects, both in terms of the phonetics (which vowels are distinct, which aren't) and the precise realisation (where the tongue is for each vowel). (As for Finn M'Cool, the apostrophe is not pronounced as anything; it's a non-phonetic spelling, just like most English spellings.) – Stuart F Jul 31 '23 at 10:03