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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. Which term do English dictionaries all describe as an Americanism from the comparative list in Chapter 4.1, despite the English version being frequently used in America?
(a) Hog-pen.
(b) Freight.
(c) Railroad.
(d) Rooster.

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

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

4. What word did Webster argue should have its vowel sound changed to "ee" instead of "eh"?
(a) Beef.
(b) Heft.
(c) Deaf.
(d) Beer.

5. Where was the broad "a" principally established prior to the Civil War?
(a) The Midwest.
(b) California.
(c) New England.
(d) The Southeast.

Short Answer Questions

1. What term did John Witherspoon coin, framing it within the context of vulgarity?

2. What language does Mencken quote Sidney Low as saying is not taught to English youth?

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

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

5. Who proposed a generally accepted nomenclature for currency in 1785?

(see the answer key)

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