The English playwright William Shakespeare used the word Scotch to describe a jig, but always employed the term Scottish when people were the subject.
A 1788 letter by Robert Burns says in part: "Apropos, is not the Scotch phrase Auld lang syne exceedingly expressive?
Burns wrote of himself in 1787, "The appellation of a Scotch Bard, is by far my highest pride; to continue to deserve it is my most exalted ambition.
In modern usage in Scotland, "Scotch" is rarely used, other than as described in the following paragraph for certain articles; it has gathered patronising and faintly offensive connotations ("frugal with one's money").
[citation needed] Scotland was one of the first countries in the world to introduce compulsory education for all children in 1696, administered in each parish by the Kirk.
Taylor wrote in his Preface to English History 1914–1945: "Some inhabitants of Scotland now call themselves Scots and their affairs Scottish.
The English word for both is Scotch, just as we call les français the French and Deutschland Germany.
Early versions of dictionaries produced in Burns' wake in the 19th century had titles such as "A Dictionary of the Scotch Dialect of the Lowlands" and modern place names now written as "Scots" e.g., Scotstarvit and Scotscalder existed in previous incarnations as "Scotch".
In another scene, one of Gow's Caledonia League minions says to him "I've never seen the like in thirty years of Scotch politics!
"[11][12][13] All editions of Robert Louis Stevenson's 1887 collection of essays Memories and Portraits use Scotch as both an adjective and noun throughout.