v. Maryland. Either is recognizable but which is more correct?* In a choice of Findlaw v. Wikipedia I’d go with what Findlaw has, but I can’t actually figure out why it would be cited “M’culloch” although it is. But it’s cited more as “McCulloch” (which likely means “M’culloch” is correct).
Need answer Tuesday.
It’s just old-fashioned. The M-apostrophe form was used for both Mc and Mac in the old days (as in the M’Naghten rule, which helped establish the insanity defense), giving the lie to the old canard that ‘Mc comes from Ireland and Mac from Scotland’: Our ancestors were never so fussy about spelling their names.
Okay, that makes sense. I did not know that about the Mc/Mac names. Thanks!
The M’ was especially used when lowercase was not available, as in some headlines: “M’CULLOCH RULING EXPECTED TODAY”
Ed
also, you’ve got a double “c” there. although you could pronounce them separately, it’s natural to glide them into one “cuh” sound - and the spelling M’Cullouch shows that there’s a missing letter, just like other contractions with an apostrophe.