Scotsman Archive

LOWLAND SCOTS 'BROKEN DOWN' 11 February, 1947

TO THE Editor of The Scotsman: Sir, Having returned home after a period of absence abroad, I welcome the interest shown in the revival of the Scottish tongue by contributors to your columns as an encouraging sign. To-day, I am shocked to hear children speaking what can only be called an uncouth parody of English interlarded with the more lurid vulgarisms of New York's Harlem and Chicago's back streets. The tyranny of BBC speech, however benevolent and unwitting (unequally yoked with that of the American films), has broken down the Scots tongue. Therefore, if the latter is really to be salvaged, it must be deliberately, consciously, and methodically reconstructed and restored. Hence "Plastic" Scots. Few of us, I suspect, care greatly for the name "plastic". But Lowland Scots is now obviously so badly broken down that only "plastic" surgery can redeem it. The choice is not between "Plastic" Scots and "spoken" Scots; it is between Plastic Scots and Dying Scots. – I am &c. Robert A Howieson, Martyrs' Manse, St Andrews.

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