original form. In areas where Scottish Gaelic was spoken until relatively recently (such as Dumfries and Galloway) and in areas where it is still spoken (such as the West Highlands), velarisation of may be absent in many words in which it is present in other areas, but remains in borrowings that had velarised in Gaelic, such as "loch" (Gaelic "loch") and "clan" (Gaelic "clann"). , and are not aspirated in more traditional varieties, but are weakly aspirated currently. The past ending -ed may be realised with where other accents use , chiefly after unstressed vowels: ended , carried The Scottish Vowel Length Rule is a distinctive part of many varieties of Scottish English (Scobbie et al. 1999), though vowel length is generally regarded as non-phonemic. According to the Rule, certain vowels (such as , , and ) are generally short but are lengthened before voiced fricatives or before . Lengthening also occurs before a morpheme boundary, so that short need contrasts with long kneed, crude with crewed, and side with sighed. Scottish English has no , instead transferring Scots . Phonetically, this vowel may be pronounced or even . Thus pull and pool are homophones. Cot and caught are not differentiated in most Central Scottish varieties, as they are in some other varieties. In most varieties, there is no - distinction; therefore, bath, trap, and palm have the same vowel. The happY vowel is most commonly (as in face), but may also be (as in kit) or (as in fleece). is often used in plural nouns where southern English has (baths, youths, etc.); with and booth are pronounced with . (See Pronunciation of English th.) In colloquial speech, the glottal stop may be an allophone of after a vowel, as in . These same speakers may "drop the g" in the suffix -ing and debuccalise to in certain contexts. may be more open for certain speakers in some regions, so that it sounds more like (although and do not merge). Other speakers may pronounce it as , just as in many other accents, or with a schwa-like () quality. Others may pronounce it almost as in certain environments, particularly after and . Scotticisms Scotticisms are idioms or expressions that are characteristic of Scots, especially when used in English. They are more likely to occur in spoken than written language. The use of Scottish English, as well as of Scots and