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Mac might be a word, but MAC, MAC, and MAC are all acronyms, to say nothing of the cosmetics brand MAC (styled as M•A•C, though not M.A.C., and remains a word, not an acronym or initialism).



Mac is a valid abbreviation of the Macintosh, which is named indirectly after John McIntosh, a Canadian farmer and apple breeder of Scottish descent, who gave his name to the McIntosh Red cultivar. Scottish artist Charles Rennie Mackintosh was also born McIntosh but revised his family name after a spelling error at the Glasgow School of Art. The Mackintosh that you wear is similarly misnamed after Charles Macintosh (no relation), inventor of the modern waterproof raincoat. And so it goes.




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