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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. Which Founding Father is said to have sought to establish a new American alphabet?
(a) Thomas Jefferson.
(b) George Washington.
(c) Benjamin Franklin.
(d) John Hancock.

3. What "great humorist" does Mencken cite in Chapter 1.3 as "celebrating 'the vigorous new vernacular of the occidental plains and mountains'"?
(a) Mark Twain.
(b) William Dean Howells.
(c) Samuel Elridge.
(d) John Fiske.

4. How is the "portmanteau-word" formed?
(a) By mixing parts of words with the same meaning in different languages.
(b) By finding the true root in the word.
(c) By onomatopoeic creativity.
(d) By blending two words.

5. What does Mencken say newspaper reporters no longer "slobber" over?
(a) Ceremonies.
(b) Tragedies.
(c) British idioms.
(d) Interviews.

6. What does Mencken state is neglected by those who are professional trained to investigate it?
(a) Philological anomalies.
(b) Formal grammar.
(c) Idiosyncrasies.
(d) The vulgate.

7. 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) Travel.
(c) Localisms.
(d) Publishing.

8. Which London newspaper lamented the "menace" that American movies offer to the purity of the English language?
(a) The <i>Daily News</i>.
(b) The <i>Illustrated London News</i>.
(c) The <i>Daily Herald</i>.
(d) The <i>Times</i>.

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

10. What American writer does Mencken claim likely inspired envy in British writers?
(a) Irving.
(b) Poe.
(c) Griswold.
(d) Fowler.

11. Which of the following was not used as a substitute for the once indecent term, for highly refined ears, "bull"?
(a) Cow-creature.
(b) Standing-cow.
(c) Gentleman-cow.
(d) Male-cow.

12. What letter, when preceding a consonant, greatly irritated Henry James like a "morose grinding of the back teeth?"
(a) G.
(b) R.
(c) E.
(d) T.

13. Who "tries" a legal case in England?
(a) The barrister.
(b) The solicitor.
(c) The judge.
(d) The jury.

14. What word in common honorifics did Edwin S. Gould protest against omitting in 1867?
(a) Right.
(b) Most.
(c) The.
(d) Very.

15. What is the English meaning of the Hawaiian word "lanai"?
(a) Porch.
(b) Balcony.
(c) Bathroom.
(d) Garage.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the American substitute for the English word "tin"?

2. Which of the following is a term used by philologists to indicate the "instinctive search, etymologically unsound, for short roots in long words"?

3. What sound did Webster object to inserting in words such as "gradual" and "nature," before the "u"?

4. Which word do Americans use for "angry" that was once an English provincialism considered base?

5. According to Chapter 2.6, what regional pronunciation is erroneously thought by some to have superior authority regarding English pronunciation?

(see the answer keys)

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