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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 3.1 | Chapter 3.2.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How many dialects dominate American English, according to Chapter 1.5?
(a) Ten.
(b) Two.
(c) Four.
(d) None.

2. Which London newspaper lamented the "menace" that American movies offer to the purity of the English language?
(a) The <i>Times</i>.
(b) The <i>Daily News</i>.
(c) The <i>Daily Herald</i>.
(d) The <i>Illustrated London News</i>.

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

4. What does John S. Farmer describe the Western vernacular as being?
(a) Dry and prolonged.
(b) Flippant and pointless.
(c) Irreverent and irrelevant.
(d) Racy and pungent.

5. Whose clarity of prevision does Mencken praise in the opening of Chapter 1.1?
(a) Franklin.
(b) Madison.
(c) Jefferson.
(d) Waldo.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. What event does Mencken credit with strengthening the obfuscation of distinction between American and British English?

3. From what language does the English word "moose" come?

4. What word does Mencken find Dr. John Dewey using in place of the word "opium?"

5. According to Mencken, what did the first generations born in the New World value as a virtue over enterprise and resourcefulness?

(see the answer key)

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