View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. Which of the following does names, used for a settlement, Mencken not list as bespattering the land?
(a) Jefferson.
(b) Lafayette.
(c) Madison.
(d) Washington.

3. Who does Mencken state are the true makers of grammar in Chapter 9.1?
(a) The masses.
(b) The authors of fiction.
(c) The grammarians.
(d) The learned.

4. What spelling change is made from English to American in words such as "connection"?
(a) Connexion to connection.
(b) Conexion to connection.
(c) Connectin to connection.
(d) Conection to connection.

5. Which of the following is the analogate to which Mencken compares the slang words overused by the ignorant?
(a) Coins.
(b) Cushions.
(c) Marriages.
(d) Horses.

6. What principle of spelling was behind much of Webster's theory concerning the simplification of spelling?
(a) Phonetics.
(b) Flexibility.
(c) Convention.
(d) Vowel accentuation.

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

8. What is the name of the professor who advocates the assimilation and alteration of the spelling and accentuation of foreign words?
(a) Brander Matthews.
(b) Nora Helmar.
(c) Edmund Gosse.
(d) Louise Pound.

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

10. Who is apparently the first literary critic to point out the "enormous gap between the literate and unliterate American"?
(a) Allen Tate.
(b) Rene Wellek.
(c) Francis Hackett.
(d) I.A. Richards.

11. 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.

12. In what year did Noah Webster die?
(a) 1898.
(b) 1912.
(c) 1843.
(d) 1799.

13. According to Mencken, which of the following does "one American professor of English" predict will become a spelling form of the future?
(a) Tyre.
(b) Cigar.
(c) Socks.
(d) Fotograf.

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

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What was the original name of Brooklyn?

2. What is frequently omitted in phrases indicated desire or intent, as indicated in Chapter 9.9?

3. In what part of the country did the Irish attain to a "truly impressive political power before the first native-born generation of them had grown up" as Mencken states in Chapter 10.1?

4. According to the study of E.J. Hills, how many descriptive adjectives are possessed by the average child of two?

5. What military slang term refers to the sunburned necks of the Marines?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 448 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample