We need to tackle the 'snobbery' towards Scots accent

The accent bias row will resonate with many Scots across the country.

For a language that is so often celebrated in literature - from Robert Burns, Walter Scott and Irvine Welsh - it is often mocked and looked down upon in every day life.

There are its obvious connections with social class and poverty.

If you are like me and the thousands of other people who use 'ken' instead of 'know', 'gads' instead of 'disgusting' or 'dee' instead of 'die' on a daily basis, then you will know what I am talking about.

Last week, it was revealed that Edinburgh University staff were being trained to tackle "accent bias" within lectures after Scottish students reported being mocked during their studies.

Around a quarter of the people enrolled in at Edinburgh university are from Scotland.

But let's be clear. It is not a problem that is reserved solely for Edinburgh University - or even education specifically.

For me, I chose not to study at Glasgow University after experiencing accent bias.

Get Scotland's top politics newsletter straight to your inbox.

I had accepted an offer to study there and enrolled on the six-week summer programme to get a feel for it.

But I quit after a few weeks and called up my second choice - Stirling University - to ask if there were spaces left. Thankfully for me, there was.

That is not to say it does not exist at Stirling, because it does. It just was not on as great of a scale.

In my few weeks at Glasgow, students I worked with on presentations asked me to tone down my Ayrshire accent before speaking in front of the class.

They were afraid it would impact their grades if I spoke as I normally did.

But for me, it spoke to a wider concern. I would need to change to fit in there.

Years ago, as an aspiring journalist, lecturers also warned I should consider changing my accent to be taken seriously in the industry, recommending elocution lessons.

Studying abroad in Prague, my accent stood out for its differences but I never felt ridiculed by the Czechs for the way I spoke.

There has been suggestions that snobbery towards the Scots accent may be at play.

Or perhaps it is just ignorance.

Read more from Unspun: 

• Swinney made a mistake in not meeting Trump administration
• Rishi Sunak's peerage list is another embarrassment
• Scottish Greens cannot afford bitter civil war 

Edinburgh University warned students not to be "snobs" around their peers from working class backgrounds, in relation to criticism over accent bias.

The training given to lecturers is reportedly already making a difference, it has been claimed.

So perhaps we need to look at taking a similar approach across the country.

Had I not been given a space at Stirling, I probably would have stuck Glasgow out - and maybe I would have fixed up my accent.

Of course there are bigger issues in the world.

But should you have to put up with this kind of attitude - or bias - because you come from a certain postcode or speak a particular way?

There is clearly pride for Scots language and culture in areas like the arts, so why not everywhere else?