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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. According to the report of Beverley, what did a group of soldiers turn into after eating some Jimson Weed?
(a) Corpses.
(b) Fools.
(c) Somnambulists.
(d) Zombies.

2. According to the tale spread by William Gifford, what language was supposed to be substituted for English during the Revolutionary War?
(a) Hebrew.
(b) Latin.
(c) French.
(d) Spanish.

3. Which is the first factor that Mencken identifies as an immediate impediment to the growth of the American language in Chapter 3.1?
(a) Political disharmony.
(b) Lack of a national literature.
(c) Territorial expansiveness.
(d) Regional diversity.

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

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) Mark Twain.
(c) William Dean Howells.
(d) John Fiske.

Short Answer Questions

1. To what phrase did Benjamin Franklin, Noah Webster, and Robert Southey object as a base Americanism, as discussed in Chapter 2.3?

2. What "Anglomaniac affectation" did Noah Webster sneer at in 1789?

3. Who is the author of "Travels in North America," published in 1827?

4. 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?

5. According to Mencken at the beginning of Chapter 1.3, what do the novelists and newspapermen on either side of the Atlantic ocean delight in?

(see the answer key)

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