apologetic apostrophe

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apologetic apostrophe (plural apologetic apostrophes)

1. (sociolinguistics, orthography) An apostrophe added to a Scots word in order to give the appearance that it is a contraction of an English word.
   • 2009, Margery Palmer McCulloch, Scottish Modernism and Its Contexts 1918-1959:

     While not all agreements were carried out as planned, what this attempt at consistency achieved in Smith's case was to give his poetry the appearance of a distinctive literary language, related to English, but having its own identity and forms, and without the distraction for the reader of the apologetic apostrophes.