Madam, - A piquant caricature of Noel O'Gara in your Weekend Review of March 31st was host to an invasive species that seems to be proliferating lately. "A piece of the Auld Sod", a placard read.
The dictionary says that "auld" is a Scottish spelling, and that it rhymes with "called". If I am not mistaken the Irish pronunciation rhymes with "howled" or, when the last letter is elided (as often happens), with "howl".
I did some research to see if there is any basis in literature for my understanding, and I found 11 cases of "ould" from Maria Edgeworth and Carleton to Frank O'Connor and Brian MacMahon by way of Colm Ó Lochlainn's ballads. O'Casey and Kavanagh preferred "oul", while Lover and Somerville & Ross opted for "owld". Not an "auld" anywhere in sight.
Given the Scottish association, I also checked some publications in Ulster-Scots. There I found 12 instances of "oul" or "owl" against six of "auld", and three of the latter were in texts printed in Scotland. So even in Ullans there is a 12 to three preference against Auld.
With all due respect to Miriam Lord who wrote (March 17th) of "a hard aul station" and (April 5th) of "two auld farmers", and to Diarmaid Ó Muirithe, who quoted a Donegal man as saying "Look at aul' Dan ..." (March 19th), I would ask you, for the sake of oul' decency, to make it a house rule that, when Irish colloquial speech appears in your columns, the orthodox distortion of the word old should be "ould" or "oul".
The Scots equivalents should be confined to distinctly Caledonian contexts such as acquaintance, lang syne, reekie, etc. - Yours, etc,
MICHAEL DRURY, Avenue Louise, Brussels, Belgium.