17 AUGUST 1956, Page 15

SIR,—Mr. Campbell's quip is so trite it may be allowed

to pass without comment. But I cannot let pass the revolting accusation that 1 or my friends write 'Lallans.' What ate Lallans? It sounds like a cow chewing the cud. The language that I write was called Inglis by Dunbar, Scottis by Gawin Douglas, and Scottish by myself. My friend Mr. Hugh MacDiarmid also writes Scottish. English, and, if 1 may coin a word for his new linguistic work, Worldish. My friends Mr. Goodsir Smith and Mr. Robert Garioch also write Scottish : Mr. Edwin Muir and Mr. Norman McCaig write English, and Mr. Sorley MacLean, one of the best poets now living in these islands, writes Gaelic.

What the others consider they do, I cannot say. The term 'Lallans' seems to have been bruited about by Mr. Douglas Young, a man of many admirable gifts, but good taste in poetic matters is not noticeably one of them. —Yours faithfully,

TOM SCOTT 5 Mackenzie Place, Edinburgh