Editing Lallans (section)

==Synthetic Scots==
The term ''Lallans'' was also used during the [[Scottish Renaissance]] of the early 20th century to refer to what [[Hugh MacDiarmid]] called ''synthetic Scots'', i.e., a synthesis  integrating, blending, and combining various forms of the [[Scots language]], both [[vernacular]] and [[archaism|archaic]]. This was intended as a classical, standard Scots for a world-class literature.

[[Sydney Goodsir Smith]] in his 1951 essay "A Short Introduction to Scottish Literature" commented:

:''“When MacDiarmid spoke of 'Synthetic Scots', he merely referred to another aspect of this necessary revolution; that we should forget the whole poverty-stricken 'dialect' tradition that Burns and his predecessors had unconsciously been responsible for, and use again all the rich resources of the language as [[William Dunbar|Dunbar]] and the [[Makars]] had used it, as had Burns and [[Robert Fergusson|Fergusson]], [[Sir Walter Scott|Scott]], [[John Galt (novelist)|Galt]], Stevenson, and [[George Douglas Brown]]. In fact to make a synthesis where for too long there had been "disintegration".''

However, the result was more often than not Scots words grafted on to a [[standard English]] grammatical structure somewhat removed from traditional spoken Scots, its main practitioners not being habitual Lowland Scots speakers themselves. "In addition, the present century has seen the conscious creation of a 'mainstream' variety of Scots — a standard literary variety,... referred to as 'synthetic Scots', now generally goes under the name Lallans (=Lowlands).... In its grammar and spelling, it shows the marked influence of Standard English, more so than other Scots dialects."<ref name="Crystal 1995 p. 333">{{cite book |last=Crystal |first=David |author-link=David Crystal |title=The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English language |publisher=Cambridge University Press |publication-place=Cambridge [England] |year=1995 |isbn=978-0-521-40179-1 |oclc=31518847 |page=333}}</ref>

MacDiarmid's detractors often referred to it as ''plastic Scots'' — a word play on ''synthetic'' as in synthetic plastics — to emphasize its artificiality.

[[Roy Campbell (poet)|Roy Campbell]], a [[South African poetry|South African poet]] of proudly [[Scottish diaspora|Scottish descent]] and political opponent and critic of MacDiarmid since the [[Spanish Civil War]], in later life poked fun at MacDiarmid's use of Synthetic Scots in the poem ''Ska-hawtch Wha Hae! A Likkle wee poom i'th' Aulde Teashoppe Pidgin Brogue, Lallands or Butter-Scotch (Wi' apooligees to MockDiarmid)''.{{sfn |Campbell |2001 |pp=106–108}}
In a footnote explaining the poem, Campbell scholar [[Joseph Pearce]] wrote, "MacDiarmid championed the use of Scots... in poetry, often employing traditional or regional parochialisms in artificial or dubious contexts."{{sfn |Campbell |2001 |p=106}}

[[Sydney Goodsir Smith]], however, defended the literary use of the idiom in his ''Epistle to John Guthrie'':

:''We've come intil a gey queer time''
:''Whan scrievin Scots is near a crime,''
:'''There's no one speaks like that', they fleer,''
:''-But wha the deil spoke like King Lear?''