Like father, like son? Scots and intra-writer variation in The Mary Hamilton Papers

This chapter draws on letters from The Mary Hamilton Papers to explore Scots usage and identity in the 18th century. William Napier (1730–1775) and his son Francis (1758–1823) were frequent and close correspondents of the courtier and Bluestocking Mary Hamilton (1756–1816). Four Scots features are analysed: Scots spellings, Northern Subject Rule, and non-standard preterite and past participle verb forms from William Napier’s correspondence, and Scots vocabulary from Francis’s writings. Analysis of these features and comparison with contemporary metalinguistic commentary reveals that while William’s usage reflects his own spoken and written norms as an educated Scotsman, Francis peppers his otherwise-standard English with Scottish terms, using them to present an identity as a down-to-earth Scotsman, in contrast with Hamilton’s metropolitan Bluestocking persona.