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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 10.1.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does the movement towards the general vowel neutralization promise to do in the future, according to Mencken?
(a) Create new vowels.
(b) Clarify the pronunciation of vowels.
(c) Reduce the number of vowel sounds, but not the vowels themselves.
(d) Dispose of many vowels.

2. What term did John Witherspoon coin, framing it within the context of vulgarity?
(a) Anglophile.
(b) Briticism.
(c) Americanism.
(d) Scientist.

3. According to Mencken, which title is subject to the greatest divergence in usage?
(a) Doctor.
(b) Professor.
(c) The Honorable.
(d) General.

4. Lounsbury is reported as saying that, "The history of language, when looked at from the purely grammatical point of view, is little else than the history of" what?
(a) Regulations.
(b) Aberrations.
(c) Innovations.
(d) Corruptions.

5. What sound did Webster object to inserting in words such as "gradual" and "nature," before the "u"?
(a) Ch.
(b) T.
(c) Y.
(d) Dh.

Short Answer Questions

1. 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?

2. Which reporter first brings colloquial Americanisms to the written word, according to Mencken in Chapter 9.2?

3. In what century did Americans begin to rebel against the capitalization trends dominant in England?

4. For which voiceless consonant is the voiced "d" substituting with growing regularity, according to Mearns?

5. In what parts of language does Mencken say the "chief grammatical peculiarities" of spoken English are found?

(see the answer key)

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