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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Which word do the English always place prior to the proper noun whereas Americans place it after, as Mencken reports at the end of Chapter 10.3?
(a) County.
(b) Lake.
(c) Street.
(d) River.

2. Mencken states that the "Meyers" are the "Smiths" of what country?
(a) Lichtenstein.
(b) Poland.
(c) Slovenia.
(d) Austria.

3. In what century did Americans begin to rebel against the capitalization trends dominant in England?
(a) The eighteenth.
(b) The seventeenth.
(c) The twentieth.
(d) The nineteenth.

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

5. According to Mencken, the word "none" is a degenerate composition of what two words?
(a) No tone.
(b) No one.
(c) Not one.
(d) Not on.

6. What name is the Italian "Giuseppe" transformed into?
(a) Jonathon.
(b) George.
(c) Gregory.
(d) Joseph.

7. Who was responsible for the endowment to the Simplified Spelling Board?
(a) Adrian Knox.
(b) Horace Hart.
(c) Andrew Carnegie.
(d) Noah Webster.

8. Who is the author of "A Doll's House," who puts bad grammar into Nora Helmar's mouth?
(a) Mencken.
(b) Chesterton.
(c) Ibsen.
(d) Shaw.

9. Which two letters did the American ethnologist McGee insist were his first name and should not be followed by periods?
(a) EL.
(b) TJ.
(c) WJ.
(d) AD.

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

11. What leads most of the studies of the sounds of the American common speech astray, according to Mencken in Chapter 9.10?
(a) A lack of scope.
(b) English conventionalism.
(c) Laziness.
(d) Individualistic interpretation.

12. Which of the following is one of the three great causes of change in language according to Sayce, as reported in Chapter 9.3?
(a) Cultural encounters.
(b) Laziness.
(c) Lexicography.
(d) Phonetic innovations.

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

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

15. In what location does Mencken say both the American and English orthographies flourish side by side?
(a) Australia.
(b) Hong Kong.
(c) New England.
(d) Canada.

Short Answer Questions

1. What language did "ambassador," "ancestor," and "bachelor" come into English from?

2. What does Mencken say, in colloquial American, has obliterated the verb?

3. For which voiceless consonant is the voiced "d" substituting with growing regularity, according to Mearns?

4. Which of the following is often used in England to designate a thoroughfare?

5. What principle of spelling was behind much of Webster's theory concerning the simplification of spelling?

(see the answer keys)

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