The apologetic or parochial apostrophe is a feature of Lowland Scots orthography, now widely proscribed as Anglocentric, whereby an apostrophe is inserted or appended to Scots words which critics claim creates the appearance of an English contraction, thus fostering the impression – common among speakers of English and Scots alike – that Scots is simply a barbarized, heavily elided form of English. To others however its use simply makes more sense with regards to how the words are said.

In most cases, Scots words never actually "lost" letters. For example, while the word taen would often be spelled ta'en (to resemble the English "taken"), the word in fact never contained a velar consonant. In the 14th century, according to an older Scots orthography, it was spelled tane.

Robert Burns, though himself a speaker and promoter of Scots, made heavy use of the apologetic apostrophe in his writings. Though the feature is increasingly absent from Scots literature, it remains common in informal writing, and in transcription of Scots by English-speakers.

Legitimate use of the apostrophe in Scots

Many words in Scots have both a full form and an abbreviated form. In abbreviated words, an apostrophe is generally used in place of the elided letters.

In the construction of the past-tense or past participle, Scots often appends the apostrophe to verbs ending with "ee" to prevent three "e"s from occurring in a single word:

dee > dee'd, gree > gree'd etc.

And, as in English, Scots uses the apostrophe to indicate contractions of multiple words:

Apologetic apostrophe in Scottish Gaelic

Many people may not be aware of the parallel phenomenon in Scottish Gaelic. Just as some people assumed Lowland Scots to be bastardised English, others assumed Scots Gaelic to be bastardised Irish. As with Lowland Scots, in some cases, there is a genuine loss of letters, but in other cases, it is unnecessary. Scottish Gaelic has eradicated many apostrophes, so while "tha ann", becomes "th'ann", "'S e" (Is e) is invariably written "Se" and "'nam" ("ann mo") and "'gam" ("aig mo") are invariably written "nam" and "gam", "Ciad e?" is now often "Dč?".

See also

• Nor Loch
• Crimes against the apostrophe (The Scotsman 29.12.06)

References

• Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd.
• Scots Tung
• Ordnance Survey
• Mang Howes an Knowes

http://www.dsl.ac.uk/dsl/INTRO/intro2.php?num=00

Sco:Apologetic apostrophe

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