Usage Guides, Social Commentary and Views on Education in Late Modern Scotland

This contribution discusses two texts published at the height of Late Modern times (Mitchell 1799 and Anon. 1826), in order to trace the roots of well-established labels occurring in assessments of Scottish usage even to this day.1 In particular, attention is paid to the qualifiers that the books employ both to stigmatize and to commend forms, so as to outline the kind of ideological stance they conveyed. The two relatively short books are now included in the Corpus of Modern Scottish Writing, and will be presented within the framework of that collection as significant instances of books circulating when linguistic self-consciousness affected both upwardly-mobile speakers and well-educated users. Models of correct usage were found to be useful tools for the acquisition or improvement of both social status and prestige – aims which still resonate with users today and the pragmatic value of which is only just beginning to be explored in a new light.