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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 6.1 | Chapter 6.2.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

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

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

4. What country's works dominated the reading habits of the American colonists in the latter 18th century?
(a) Germany.
(b) Denmark.
(c) France.
(d) England.

5. To what phrase did Benjamin Franklin, Noah Webster, and Robert Southey object as a base Americanism, as discussed in Chapter 2.3?
(a) To indulge.
(b) To advocate.
(c) Free endorsement.
(d) To process.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the English "secondary school" correspond to in American?

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

3. What Anglo-Saxon word does Mencken report the colonists refused to replace with an Old Norse word of similar meaning?

4. According to Mencken, the name of what game puzzles etymologists?

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

(see the answer key)

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