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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. What word in American is used for the English word "shoe?"
(a) Slipper.
(b) Boot.
(c) Footing.
(d) Sandal.

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

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

4. 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) Samuel Elridge.
(c) Mark Twain.
(d) John Fiske.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. To what continent does Mencken attribute the acknowledgment of the differences between American and British English?

2. What sound did Webster object to inserting in words such as "gradual" and "nature," before the "u"?

3. Which defender of Americanisms cited by Mencken in Chapter 1.3 states that "Language is made by the people"?

4. 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?

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

(see the answer key)

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