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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 4.4 | Chapter 4.5.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What word does Mencken find Dr. John Dewey using in place of the word "opium?"
(a) Poppy.
(b) Skag.
(c) Dope.
(d) Crack.

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

3. What ethnicity of people, through the influence of the mercantile class, is referred to by a different name in the United States than in England?
(a) Black/African American.
(b) White/Caucasian.
(c) Jew/Hebrew.
(d) Latino/Hispanic.

4. What use of storage was added to the American meaning of the word "barn?"
(a) Cattle.
(b) Horses.
(c) Crops.
(d) Chickens.

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?
(a) Intercommunication.
(b) Localisms.
(c) Travel.
(d) Publishing.

Short Answer Questions

1. How many dialects dominate American English, according to Chapter 1.5?

2. What does Mencken list as dominant the English alternative for the word "mail"?

3. Which London newspaper lamented the "menace" that American movies offer to the purity of the English language?

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

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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