This page will attempt to solve the mystery of Mc versus Mac, the alphabetization of Mc, as well as the mystery of the raised c often used in Mc.
Historically, Mac was a surname prefix for Irish or Scottish sons. Many people believe that Mc is Irish and Mac is Scottish, but Mc is merely an abbreviation of Mac, and both forms are in use in both places. Mac was often abbreviated as M' or M'c (with the apostrophe to indicate it was an abbreviation). After the invention of the printing press, it was common to typeset abbreviations with raised letters, so M'c became Mʿ (Mc). In handwritten form, the c was often raised, and sometimes had one or two lines or two dots underneath to indicate it as raised (and therefore as an abbreviation). Since Mc is an abbreviation of Mac, Mc names are often seen alphabetized (as they properly should be) as though they are spelled Mac.
Personally, I think it is wrong to write Mc names with a lower c, as there is nothing to indicate that this is actually an abbreviated form of the original name. This raises a problem in that there are many people with Mc names that write their names with a raised c, yet the computer-age has forced people to typeset their names with a lower c. This can be overcome with LaTeX and HTML (see below), but in the plain text environment, this is still a problem. While it would probably be proper to revert Mc names to their full Mac form, this would not sit well with many people with Mc names. Looking back at the original way in which Mc names were abbreviated, I believe it is best to write them as M' or M'c, in that case.
In HTML Mc can be typeset with:
M<sup>c</sup>
(Note: This doesn't work with browsers like Lynx, and even with graphical browsers the c can appear too high or too low with some fonts.)
or Mʿ can be typeset with HTML character code 703:
Mʿ
(Note: This doesn't work with browsers like Lynx, and it doesn't work for all graphical browsers either, as it's dependent on the corresponding character existing for the
font in use.)
In LaTeX Mʿ (Mc) can be typeset perfectly with:
\newlength{\Mheight}
\newlength{\cwidth}
\settoheight{\Mheight}{M}\settowidth{\cwidth}{c}M\parbox[b][\Mheight][t]{\cwidth}{c}
© 2001-2004 m.l. mcclure