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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. As what part of speech does vulgar American consider the word "self" within the spirit of the language?
(a) A noun.
(b) A verb.
(c) An adverb.
(d) An adjective.

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

3. How many works does Mencken claim to have discovered covering the topic of American slang?
(a) Twelve.
(b) Three.
(c) One.
(d) Hundreds.

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

5. What was the Anglo-Saxon form of the modern-day word "my," according to Mencken in Chapter 9.4?
(a) Mien.
(b) Mi.
(c) Min.
(d) Mine.

6. According to Chapter 8.4, what is the first impulse behind American imitation of English orthography?
(a) Anti-colonialism.
(b) Compromise for cheaper printing.
(c) Convenience.
(d) Affectation.

7. Who published a work in 1768 entitled "Scheme for a New Alphabet and a Reformed Mode of Spelling, with Remarks and Examples Concerning the Same, and an Enquiry into its Uses"?
(a) Samuel Johnson.
(b) Benjamin Franklin.
(c) Noah Webster.
(d) Thomas Jefferson.

8. From which of the following have the English changed their spelling?
(a) Develope.
(b) Gramme.
(c) Programme.
(d) Kilogramme.

9. 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) Miscellaneous differences.
(c) The omission of a redundant -e.
(d) The -or/-our distinction.

10. 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 political.
(d) The religious.

11. How does Mencken characterize the vulgar American habitual use of the double negative?
(a) With "unconscious loathing."
(b) With "periodic intensity."
(c) With "happy fecundity."
(d) With "sturdy fidelity."

12. What does the movement towards the general vowel neutralization promise to do in the future, according to Mencken?
(a) Dispose of many vowels.
(b) Create new vowels.
(c) Clarify the pronunciation of vowels.
(d) Reduce the number of vowel sounds, but not the vowels themselves.

13. For which voiceless consonant is the voiced "d" substituting with growing regularity, according to Mearns?
(a) T.
(b) C.
(c) B.
(d) S.

14. In which city are the French names of streets reported by Mencken to be beautiful but so barbarously pronounced as to be unrecognizable by a Frenchman?
(a) Houston.
(b) Baton Rouge.
(c) Lafayette.
(d) New Orleans.

15. Who does Mencken quote as saying, "There is no part of the world where nomenclature is so rich, poetical, humorous and picturesque as in the United States of America"?
(a) G.K. Chesterton.
(b) Walt Whitman.
(c) Robert Louis Stevenson.
(d) Benjamin Franklin.

Short Answer Questions

1. What was the common, popular American slang word used for Germans during the First World War, according to Mencken?

2. What is the name of the professor who advocates the assimilation and alteration of the spelling and accentuation of foreign words?

3. Which case of the noun in English yet has an inflection at the time of Mencken's writing?

4. What is the English equivalent of the American Main Street?

5. What does Mencken say that a proper understanding of words and their meanings will enable their speaker to do, in Chapter 11.1?

(see the answer keys)

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