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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 11.1.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. Which of the following does Mencken not list as a once-slang word turned into one commonly accepted?
(a) Nice.
(b) Frugal.
(c) Awful.
(d) Proposition.

3. Which of the following does names, used for a settlement, Mencken not list as bespattering the land?
(a) Lafayette.
(b) Washington.
(c) Jefferson.
(d) Madison.

4. According to Mencken, the English opposition to American spelling transcends the academic and takes on the character of what?
(a) The patriotic.
(b) The ethical.
(c) The religious.
(d) The political.

5. Which two letters did the American ethnologist McGee insist were his first name and should not be followed by periods?
(a) WJ.
(b) EL.
(c) AD.
(d) TJ.

Short Answer Questions

1. To what do English writers usually ascribe the American custom of numbering and lettering streets?

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

3. Which organization produced a prospectus in 1913 that warned against extreme English conservatism in the spelling of foreign loan-words?

4. Which double negative word is primarily found in Shakespeare?

5. Over how many post offices does Mencken state bear the adjective "New"?

(see the answer key)

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