Mac

   , Mack

   Etymologically ‘mac’ means ‘son’ at the beginning of a name like ‘MacInnes’. In vocative use to a stranger it is roughly the equivalent of ‘man’, though it is often more hostile than ‘man’ would be.

   There’s such a thing as being a lady,’ says a character in The Wayward Bus, by John Steinbeck. The passage continues: ‘An edge came into her voice. “Look, Mac,” she said, “I can play rough too.”’ In J.D.Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye ‘Mac’ is used by a taxi-driver to his young male client, whom he also addresses as ‘bud’ and ‘buddy’. In Chuck, by Carl Sterland, an American policeman says to two men in a car: ‘Okay, buddy, out. Right now, out. You too, Mac.’ In A Salute to the Great McCarthy, a novel by Barry Oakley which is set in Australia, a cinema attendant addresses a young male customer as ‘Mac’.