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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What language does Mencken quote Sidney Low as saying is not taught to English youth?
(a) Greek.
(b) Latin.
(c) American.
(d) Russian.

2. Which Founding Father coined the term "to belittle"?
(a) Alexander Hamilton.
(b) James Madison.
(c) Benjamin Franklin.
(d) Thomas Jefferson.

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

4. What difference in pronunciation does Mencken state most sharply distinguishes the two dialects?
(a) The normative "-ary" suffix.
(b) The normative "o."
(c) The normative "a."
(d) The normative "ch."

5. What sound did Webster object to inserting in words such as "gradual" and "nature," before the "u"?
(a) T.
(b) Ch.
(c) Y.
(d) Dh.

6. Who protested the adoption of the broad "a" in an 1857 work entitled "The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table"?
(a) Noah Webster.
(b) Oliver Wendell Holmes.
(c) Richard Meade Bache.
(d) Frank H. Vizetelly.

7. To what country does the English correspondent in Chapter 4.5 ascribe many American expletives?
(a) Ireland.
(b) Sweden.
(c) France.
(d) Germany.

8. How many classifications of Americanisms does Gilbert M. Tucker provide in 1921?
(a) Twenty.
(b) Two.
(c) Thirteen.
(d) Twelve.

9. What moniker of currency has persisted in America despite having no currency properly of that name?
(a) Nickel.
(b) Bill.
(c) Penny.
(d) Pence.

10. Which of the following groups of foreign immigrants does Mencken not attribute influence over American English in Chapter 6.4?
(a) Russian Jews.
(b) Italians.
(c) Slavic peoples.
(d) South-Pacific Asian Islanders.

11. What word did Webster argue should have its vowel sound changed to "ee" instead of "eh"?
(a) Beer.
(b) Beef.
(c) Heft.
(d) Deaf.

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

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

14. What term did John Witherspoon coin, framing it within the context of vulgarity?
(a) Scientist.
(b) Anglophile.
(c) Briticism.
(d) Americanism.

15. What purpose does Miss Wittmann say is served by the shortening of word forms?
(a) Convenience.
(b) None.
(c) Color.
(d) Creativity.

Short Answer Questions

1. What "Anglomaniac affectation" did Noah Webster sneer at in 1789?

2. How many classifications of Americanisms does Bartlett postulate in his 1859 dictionary?

3. What is the universal substitute for the word "ye" as described in Chapter 6.2?

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

5. In terms of politics, an American candidate "runs" for office. What does an English candidate do?

(see the answer keys)

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