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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 3.5 | Chapter 4.1.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. From what language does the English word "moose" come?
(a) Cherokee.
(b) Italian.
(c) English.
(d) Algonquin.

2. Who protested the adoption of the broad "a" in an 1857 work entitled "The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table"?
(a) Richard Meade Bache.
(b) Frank H. Vizetelly.
(c) Oliver Wendell Holmes.
(d) Noah Webster.

3. According to Mencken, what did the first generations born in the New World value as a virtue over enterprise and resourcefulness?
(a) Ingenuity.
(b) Courage.
(c) Niceness.
(d) Temperance.

4. To what continent does Mencken attribute the acknowledgment of the differences between American and British English?
(a) South America.
(b) Asia.
(c) North America.
(d) Europe.

5. What "great humorist" does Mencken cite in Chapter 1.3 as "celebrating 'the vigorous new vernacular of the occidental plains and mountains'"?
(a) Samuel Elridge.
(b) John Fiske.
(c) William Dean Howells.
(d) Mark Twain.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which London newspaper lamented the "menace" that American movies offer to the purity of the English language?

2. What word in American is used for the English word "shoe?"

3. Which of the early presidents does Mencken identify as archetypal of the new American?

4. What word did Webster argue should have its vowel sound changed to "ee" instead of "eh"?

5. Where was the broad "a" principally established prior to the Civil War?

(see the answer key)

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