Use of "Mac" or "son"

[piperdbh]

In olden days, a son would often "inherit" his father's profession, unless something happened to put him into a different line of business. For generations a family might be the millers (little m) in town, and everyone knew them as Moe the miller, his son Larry the miller, his son Curly the miller and so on.* There wouldn't have been a need to refer to any one of them as "Son of the miller", because he was the miller (or weaver or tanner or cooper or whatever else).
Surnames which were not occupational were the ones that needed to identify whose son Or daughter, i.e. "Nic") someone was.



*I know 4 of the Stooges were brothers and Larry was their cousin.

[Highland Logan]

This has come up before on the board. Although I can no longer find the referance, there was a fellow who wrote his name with three verations to prove the point in the 1700's I beleive. Mac, Mc and M'. The shortening of the Mac from what I gathered was all due to the fad of abreaviateing to move things along.

Frank

[Chas]

Hello All,

Until relatively recently spelling was an adventure rather than a fixed rule. Read any lengthy pre-Victorian monument; the same word is often spelled differently throughout the text. Remember as well that the vast majority of the population could not read nor write. They could, of course, copy what they saw - mistakes and all.

When I joined the RAF in 1970, I was designated as the official signer for a fellow airman who could neither read nor write. I am Charles-Dunne and he was Charlton. At weekly pay parade, I would sign for and receive my wages and would then wait till Charlton 'made his mark'. I would then sign my name again next to his mark with the annotation 'AC Charlton - his mark'.

One last little point, there are only 9 existing copies of William Shakespear's signature - each one is spelled differently. One, he even signs himself a William Shakeshaft. If the "Bard of Avon" can't even spell his own name correctly what hope is there for the rest of us?

Regards

Chas

[gilmore]

Hello All,

Until relatively recently spelling was an adventure rather than a fixed rule. Read any lengthy pre-Victorian monument; the same word is often spelled differently throughout the text. Remember as well that the vast majority of the population could not read nor write. They could, of course, copy what they saw - mistakes and all.

When I joined the RAF in 1970, I was designated as the official signer for a fellow airman who could neither read nor write. I am Charles-Dunne and he was Charlton. At weekly pay parade, I would sign for and receive my wages and would then wait till Charlton 'made his mark'. I would then sign my name again next to his mark with the annotation 'AC Charlton - his mark'.

One last little point, there are only 9 existing copies of William Shakespear's signature - each one is spelled differently. One, he even signs himself a William Shakeshaft. If the "Bard of Avon" can't even spell his own name correctly what hope is there for the rest of us?

Regards

Chas

At the times in question it was not at all a matter of spelling correctly or incorrectly. That was a concept that did not exist until the popularization of dictionaries and public education in the early 19th century. Before then everyone spelled words as they said them or heard them, according to their own lights.

It wasn't that writers copied mispellings. It was that they recorded the sounds of words as they understood them.