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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. What event does Mencken credit with strengthening the obfuscation of distinction between American and British English?
(a) The First World War.
(b) The advent of the transatlantic telephone line.
(c) The French Revolution.
(d) The bombing of London.

3. What is the second characteristic that Mencken attributes to American English in Chapter 1.5?
(a) Disunity of regional dialects.
(b) Disregard of rule and precedent.
(c) Translatability to British English.
(d) Resistance to neologisms.

4. According to Mencken, what did the first generations born in the New World value as a virtue over enterprise and resourcefulness?
(a) Temperance.
(b) Niceness.
(c) Courage.
(d) Ingenuity.

5. What word in common honorifics did Edwin S. Gould protest against omitting in 1867?
(a) The.
(b) Right.
(c) Most.
(d) Very.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the American substitute for the English word "tin"?

2. Mencken claims that Noah Webster contains less of the scientific inquirer and more of what?

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

4. What is the English meaning of the phrase "to carry on"?

5. What "great humorist" does Mencken cite in Chapter 1.3 as "celebrating 'the vigorous new vernacular of the occidental plains and mountains'"?

Short Essay Questions

1. Aside from numbering and lettering, what is the principal way in which American and English styles of naming streets are divergent?

2. Why does Mencken find the double negative an appreciable linguistic deviation?

3. What is the significance of the quote from Sayce at the beginning of Chapter 9.9 that "Language begins with sentences, not with single words"?

4. In general, how did Noah Webster influence American pronunciation?

5. For what reason did the early Americans wish to distinguish their language from that of the English?

6. What is the character of the argument presented by the Society for Pure English in the quoted caveat?

7. How does Mencken characterize Shakespeare and what is the Bard's relevance on American English?

8. What is revealed by the attitudes of the English conservatives in Australia towards American spelling?

9. What was the predominant attitude of philologists towards the study of American slang, at the time of Mencken's writing?

10. How does Mencken describe the attempts of British authors to give voice to American characters?

(see the answer keys)

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