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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What Anglo-Saxon word does Mencken report the colonists refused to replace with an Old Norse word of similar meaning?
(a) Vapid.
(b) Hale.
(c) Ill.
(d) Sick.

2. According to Mencken, how do the Americans consider the precise English use of the indefinite pronoun ("one")?
(a) Ambiguously.
(b) Apathetically.
(c) Respectfully.
(d) Disdainfully.

3. The prudish reluctance to name what sort of diseases hindered proper preventative information?
(a) Psychological.
(b) Venereal.
(c) Gastro-intestinal.
(d) Cancerous.

4. What purpose does the double negative primarily serve?
(a) Syntactical compactness.
(b) Reinforcement.
(c) Confusion.
(d) Rhetorical circuitry.

5. How many classifications of Americanisms does Bartlett postulate in his 1859 dictionary?
(a) Three.
(b) Four.
(c) Nine.
(d) Forty-two.

Short Answer Questions

1. In what century did Americans begin to rebel against the capitalization trends dominant in England?

2. According to Dr. Louise Pound, what do Latin plurals tend to become in colloquial American?

3. What country's works dominated the reading habits of the American colonists in the latter 18th century?

4. According to Benjamin Franklin, what was roughly the population of the colonies in 1751?

5. What does the movement towards the general vowel neutralization promise to do in the future, according to Mencken?

(see the answer key)

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