On August 18 1996 Scotland on Sunday printed the article on the left in 'Ron McKay's Diary'.
My reply (right) was printed the following Sunday, August 25.
Interestingly, the August 25 edition also carried no less than three positive articles about Scots. A front-page story about a major review of the teaching of Scottish culture in schools cited Paul Scott, president of the Saltire Society, who said " the increased teaching of Gaelic and the publication of this year of a children's Scots dictionary [are] examples of a change in attitude to Scotland's languages, which [are] crucial to the country's sense of identity and its place in Europe.". This was expanded in a larger article on the same subject, which quoted Iseabail Macleod, editor of the Scottish National Dictionary "We should be paying a lot more respect to Scots and not see it as a bastard dialect of English." Finally there was an article criticising the Scottish Arts Council for cutting funding for the Doric Festival in the NE.