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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 9.10.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What notable author was the first Englishman to carry Americanisms successfully back to his home?
(a) G.K. Chesterton.
(b) Charles Dickens.
(c) Cleveland Coxe.
(d) Joseph Conrad.

2. What is the longest list of spelling changes from English to American that Mencken gives in Chapter 8.1?
(a) The change of diphthongs into plain words.
(b) The omission of a redundant -e.
(c) Miscellaneous differences.
(d) The -or/-our distinction.

3. In what century did Americans begin to rebel against the capitalization trends dominant in England?
(a) The nineteenth.
(b) The seventeenth.
(c) The twentieth.
(d) The eighteenth.

4. In what year did the National Education Association withdraw from the campaign for simplified spelling?
(a) 1914.
(b) 1907.
(c) 1921.
(d) 1899.

5. To what does Mencken ascribe the inflection of English adjectives?
(a) Comparison.
(b) Emphasis.
(c) Frivolity.
(d) Convention.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to the tale spread by William Gifford, what language was supposed to be substituted for English during the Revolutionary War?

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

3. How many classifications of Americanisms does Gilbert M. Tucker provide in 1921?

4. Who does Mencken state are the true makers of grammar in Chapter 9.1?

5. In what century did England replace the "i-sound" with the "oi-sound" in words such as "boy"?

(see the answer key)

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