Talk:Alexander Mackenzie (explorer)

message: The "K" in MacKenzie ought to be capitalised.
:Why? Adam Bishop 05:50, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Look at the way it's written on the stone. 145.64.134.241 06:22, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, people during that era were not always consistent about how the name was rendered. The DoCB article prefers the "Mackenzie" spelling, I think we should stick with that. Fawcett5 12:46, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Because Mac means "Son of" + the name, in this case a bastardisation of "Coinneach", meaning Kenneth. No one writes "kenneth", unless they are e. e. cummings --MacRusgail 18:26, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A name like that in lower case is common even today, and was certainly common then, e.g. James Macpherson.  Mackenzie himself is known universally in reputable texts with his name in that form, and it's the form used in his book, Voyages from Montreal.  (Look it up on Worldcat).  Whoever changed the title on this did it without warrant.  As Fawcett5 pointed out, a screen shot of a stone carving is not an acceptable basis when discussing a person who lived when spellings were not so rigid as now and for whom a mountain of citations and practice exists for the other way. 69.227.127.194 23:00, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not. The title page uses an all-caps ALEXANDER MACKENZIE and a cursory google of antique booksellers suggests that he spelt it MacKenzie in the first versions, with later editors emending it. Regardless, you're right that today his name seems to be generally (but not universally) spelled along English lines with a miniscule k; the lede should simply include a also or or MacKenzie to acknowledge the situation and tamp down similar well-intentioned edits. -LlywelynII (talk) 14:39, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: While correct that MacKenzie was a spelling of his, you should have looked at more than just the title page.  There's a portrait on the frontispiece labeled with Mackenzie's name, and though also in capital letters the "M" is in larger script than the rest.  He also mentions himself or his cousin Roderic Mackenzie several times in the text, in each case spelled "Mackenzie".  One of the instances, in fact, is a formalized transcript of the "MacKenzie" rock carving.  This is all from the first edition in London, 1801, and I am not aware of any copy printed "MacKenzie" and very much doubt one exists.  The booksellers are probably just glancing at the title page and guessing.  Derek Hayes, on pg. 7 of First Crossing: Alexander Mackenzie, his Expedition across North America writes that: "I have spelled Mackenzie's name as he spelled it in his book, but in fact Mackenzie himself used 'McKenzie' [sic] much of the time.  Some letters are signed one way, some the other."  (I'm guessing McKenzie is a typo, though maybe not.)  Evidently like many men of his time he wasn't too particular about how his name was spelled. Cynwulf (talk) 19:57, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

text: IIRC I remember somewhere on a talkpage that the capital-K was used here to distinguish him from "the other guy"; it was an arbitrary Wiki-style choice, not done on the basis of documentation.....Skookum1 (talk) 21:47, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

text: Done. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:20, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

text: It isn't a misspelling (see above), but it is better to leave it here regardless of the utility of the disambig, since this is the more common format now. -LlywelynII (talk) 16:53, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Capitalization of K in MacKenzie

message: I was reading Lewis by Donald Macdonald and it says Alexander Mackenzie crossed in 1774 aged 12 giving a date of birth of 1761/2, googling for Alexander Mackenzie a few pages record his DOB as 1762?
:Yeah, i read a book about Alexander Mackenzie (lululemon) and it said he crossed to North America in 1776???
i am trying to find the explorer, NOT  the prime minsiter. or are they both?
:This is he. The other one is at the disambig. -LlywelynII (talk) 16:53, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Date of Birth earlier? 1822

message: In Alexander Mackenzie it says the end of his westward journey was at South Bentinck Arm for which there is no article.  Dean Channel and North Bentinck Arm say it was at North Bentinck Arm.  Is there a source that resolves this? --KenWalker | Talk 11:10, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Which Bentinck Arm? 

message: The article says that the message left on the rock at Dean's Channel read ""Alexander Mackenzie from Canada, by land, the twenty-second of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three!" yet the picture reads as "Alexander Mackenzie from Canada, by land, 22d July, 1793". The article mentions that later surveyors permanantly engraved this message on the rock; did they change the date format when they did the engraving or is this an error in the article?Wkharrisjr (talk) 20:40, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It is more likely, given the fact that they surveryors got his name wrong, that they got the rest of the inscription wrong or edited it to fit.  As I understand it the surveyors did the engraving many years after Mackenzie's visit. The source given for the wording of the inscription is quite reliable I think. --KenWalker | Talk 02:15, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Except they didn't get his name 'wrong.' See above. As for the actual inscription (made deeper and more permanent over the original) being less reliable than an online gov't encyclopedia entry, I would have to contest that, especially given the unlikelihood of bothering to carve a spelled-out date into a rock. -LlywelynII (talk) 16:53, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

text: The article is based on the Canadian biography article, which simply transcribed it incorrectly. The exclamation point was just OR. Fix'd. -LlywelynII (talk) 16:53, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Inscription on Rock

message: Apart from the fact that it is rather unclear how he got to the Mackenzie river in the first place (since he was at Lake Athabasca, but the river starts at the Great Slave Lake instead), the dates for this trip are suspect: according to the article he got in his canoe on July 10, presumably near the source of the river, and arrived at the river's mouth 4 days later. That is not possible: the Mackenzie river is 1000 miles long, and very slow flowing. No clear reference for this amazing feat is given. (Compare: http://www.canoenorth.ca/content/self-guided-trips-mackenzie-river-deh-cho quotes 4-7 weeks for this trip with modern equipment.) 2602:306:CEAE:E60:EC00:E4E2:4D3E:7E11 (talk) 08:40, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  First Expedition 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: why
:I've addressed this in an edit summary, while reverting the same "grammar fix". Haploidavey (talk) 22:40, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  why did someone revert my fixing of a grammatical error  

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I see this article has both spelling tags. The use UK English is dated 2014. The use US one is dated 2019. Looking back through the history, UK English was used first. Besides that, there's no reason this bio should use US English. I will clean up MOS:VAR. Masterhatch (talk) 19:08, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  US vs UK spelling