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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. From what newspaper does Mencken derive the story with which he opens Chapter 11.2?
(a) The Los Angeles Times.
(b) The New York Tribune.
(c) The Boston Herald.
(d) The Baltimore Sun.

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

3. What was the common, popular American slang word used for Germans during the First World War, according to Mencken?
(a) Hun.
(b) Kraut.
(c) Boche.
(d) Jerry.

4. To what does Mencken ascribe the inflection of English adjectives?
(a) Frivolity.
(b) Comparison.
(c) Convention.
(d) Emphasis.

5. What sort of distinction frequently occurs between an adverb and its primary adjective?
(a) Syntactical.
(b) Lexical.
(c) Numerical.
(d) Pronunciation.

6. Into what was the French surname "Beauchamp" translated in America?
(a) Fairfield.
(b) Gardner.
(c) Smith.
(d) Taylor.

7. Whose "gaping maw" often spoils an "apt and ingenious neologism," according to Mencken in Chapter 11.1?
(a) The proletariat.
(b) The elite.
(c) The popular journalists.
(d) The popular novelists.

8. Which Americanized foreign loan-word in the common speech means, in its vulgar loaned form, "to prance or to walk consciously"?
(a) Minoot.
(b) Habichoo.
(c) Proteege.
(d) Sashay.

9. Over how many post offices does Mencken state bear the adjective "New"?
(a) 525.
(b) 820.
(c) 600.
(d) 350.

10. Who was the author of the couplet that Mencken quotes: "For thou art a girl as much brighter than her / As he was a poet sublimer than me"?
(a) Matthew Prior.
(b) Matthew Arnold.
(c) Percy Bysse Shelley.
(d) John Keats.

11. Which of the following does Wilcox not list as a negative treatment of the English language by grammarians?
(a) Excessive classification.
(b) Multiplication of terms for a single conception.
(c) Excessive inflection.
(d) Excessive revision.

12. Which 1914 English dictionary made many important concessions to American spellings?
(a) The Cambridge Fleet Edition.
(b) The Concise Oxford Dictionary.
(c) The New English Dictionary.
(d) The London Pocket Dictionary.

13. In what dialect of English is "slick" used synonymously with "sleek" according to Chapter 9.10?
(a) English.
(b) Australian.
(c) American.
(d) South African.

14. Which of the following is not one of the minor differences Mencken lists in Chapter 8.7?
(a) Fruit.
(b) Aluminum.
(c) Alarm.
(d) Specialty.

15. In what parts of language does Mencken say the "chief grammatical peculiarities" of spoken English are found?
(a) Nouns and participles.
(b) Verbs and pronouns.
(c) Nouns and prepositions.
(d) Adverbs and adjectives.

Short Answer Questions

1. How many soldiers' names were presented to the House by Mr. Mondell in 1919?

2. How many works does Mencken claim to have discovered covering the topic of American slang?

3. Lounsbury is reported as saying that, "The history of language, when looked at from the purely grammatical point of view, is little else than the history of" what?

4. Who is apparently the first literary critic to point out the "enormous gap between the literate and unliterate American"?

5. According to Mencken, the English opposition to American spelling transcends the academic and takes on the character of what?

(see the answer keys)

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