apologetic apostrophe

plural apologetic apostrophes

1. communicationsAn apostrophe added to a Scots word in order to give the appearance that it is a contraction of an English word.

   1 more example

   While not all agreements were carried out as planned, what this attempt at consistency achieved in Smith's case was to give his poetry the appearance of a distinctive literary language, related to English, but having its own identity and forms, and without the distraction for the reader of the apologetic apostrophes.

   2009, Margery Palmer McCulloch, Scottish Modernism and Its Contexts 1918-1959

2. A similar apostrophe added to a present participle of the -in form in English or in Scots, producing -in', according to the emic notion that the /ŋ/ is always contracted (as opposed to the forms coexisting allophonically).