Readers' Ombudsman: A capital question, and one we will let Mr MacDonald decide

Published on Sunday 14 December 2008 21:37

IHAVE lived and worked in Scotland for the vast majority of my life and my career as a journalist, and I have never come across this issue before. I have to say it genuinely surprised me. It was raised by Anne Ross, who said that she was "dumbfounded" that The Scotsman was regularly making this mistake. It concerns the spelling of Scottish surnames.

She writes: "Alas, my e-mail concerns an error that has become very common in newspapers, books and even television news, namely the mis-spelling of Scottish surnames beginning with Mac or Mc.

"I have it on good authority from Angus MacIver's First Aid In English that Mac surnames must have a capital letter after the Mac. MacDonald, not Macdonald, McNeil, not Macneil, McInnes, not Mcinnes etc. I'm dumbfounded to see this mistake in The Scotsman, and would love to see it extirpated asap. After all, no-one would write O'neil or O'donnell."

She finishes: "Keep up the good work in defence of the language!" She may not be so pleased at this week's defensive manoeuvres.

Her judicious use of the word "extirpate" comes from a previous column where I admitted I had not come across the word before. She said: "I too was amazed to see the word extirpate. It's up there at the linguistic peak, with egregious, impinge and scintilla, words that were in frequent use by my teachers in the Sixties."

But to her main point. I have come across the issue of Mc and Mac being taken as the same prefix for listing in phone directories, but that was just for the expediency of the phone book companies.

Is spelling Macdonnell with a lower case d a mistake?

The Surnames of Scotland by George Fraser Black certainly looks like it should be the authoritative work on the subject. Certainly it was the most relevant book I could find on the shelves of The Scotman's library. Mr Black addresses the subject directly.

"In the author's opinion all Gaelic surnames (there are strictly speaking no longer any patronymics) ought to be written as one word. As a prefix to a name, Mac should never be followed by a capital letter. No Macdonald at the present day is son of one called Donald (a patronymic], for the simple reason here that Donald has lost its signification as a personal name, and with Mac prefixed has become a different surname."

He also says: "(Donald] Gregory was of much the same opinion. In his History of the Western Highlands and Isles of Scotland he requests the reader to note that 'throughout this work, where a patronymic is printed thus – MacDonald – with a capital letter, it indicates that the individual mentioned really was the Son of Donald or as the case may be. Where on the other hand a patronymic is printed without the capital letter – Macdonald – it is merely a general surname and does not indicate the precise parentage of the individual'."

Well, they take the opposite view to Mr MacIver's. It is clear that opinion is divided on the subject – in fact it seems there is no place for hard and fast rules. I am sure this will not be the last we shall hear of it. However, I would claim that this at least shows that The Scotsman is not committing a "mistake" by including names of both spellings.

I shall leave the last word on the subject, for now, to Mr Black: "Of course as surnames are personal property a man (or woman – I guess this was written before the days of equality] is quite at liberty to spell and write his (or her] name as he (or she, sorry about this] pleases, and etiquette demands that in writing to (or about, in our case] an individual, we address our letter as our correspondent spells and writes it."

Needless to say the (brackets] were mine…

IF YOU have a complaint about editorial in The Scotsman, contact Ian Stewart at 108 Holyrood Road, Edinburgh EH8 8AS, by e-mail at [e-mail] or on 0131 620 8633.