Apologetic apostrophe

The 'apologetic' or parochial apostrophe is the distinctive use of apostrophes in some Modern Scots spelling. Apologetic apostrophes generally occurred where a consonant exists in the Standard English cognate, as in (all), (give) and (with). The practice, unknown in Older Scots, was introduced in the 18th century by writers such as Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson and Robert Burns as part of a process of Anglicisation. The 18th century practice was also adopted by later writers such as Walter Scott, John Galt and Robert Louis Stevenson. It produced an easily understood spurious Scots that was very popular with English readers and on the English stage. It was also sometimes forced on reluctant authors by publishers desirous of a wider circulation for their books. The custom "also had the unfortunate effect of suggesting that Broad Scots was not a separate language system, but rather a divergent or inferior form of English". The use of the apologetic apostrophe became less widespread in 1947 and is now considered unacceptable, the apostrophe less forms such as (all), (give) and (with) being preferable.

Early Scots had undergone a process of L vocalisation where /l/ was preceded by the vowels and in closed syllables, which was completed by the end of the 14th century. The cluster vocalised to and to hence spellings such as a (all), ba (ball), ca (call), sa't (salt) and ha'd (hold), and fu and pu with the doublets full and pull The standard literary apostrophe less spellings for (also ) were and with generally occurring word initially or medially, and occurring word final thus aw (all), baw (ball), caw (call), saut (salt) and haud (hold). The standard literary spelling of was , generally preferred in the Scottish National Dictionary, although the use of , borrowed from Standard English, became popular by the 19th century. Thus fou and pou, but the form fu functioning as the cognate of the suffix 'ful'. L also vocalised after in closed syllables

The consonant clusters in the inflectional endings and , cognate with Standard English , changed to in Early Scots: the modern realisations generally being and hence the spelling in.