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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. What sound did Webster object to inserting in words such as "gradual" and "nature," before the "u"?
(a) Dh.
(b) Y.
(c) T.
(d) Ch.

2. Mencken claims that Noah Webster contains less of the scientific inquirer and more of what?
(a) The father.
(b) The erudite fool.
(c) The teacher.
(d) The philological traditionalist.

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

4. Which is the second factor that Mencken identifies as an impediment to the growth of the American language in Chapter 3.1?
(a) Regional diversity.
(b) Political disharmony.
(c) Lack of a national literature.
(d) Territorial expansiveness.

5. What is the English meaning of the Hawaiian word "lanai"?
(a) Bathroom.
(b) Porch.
(c) Balcony.
(d) Garage.

Short Answer Questions

1. Whose clarity of prevision does Mencken praise in the opening of Chapter 1.1?

2. Who protested the adoption of the broad "a" in an 1857 work entitled "The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table"?

3. What vowel sound was dominant in 18th century New England pronunciation, despite common protests to the contrary?

4. To what phrase did Benjamin Franklin, Noah Webster, and Robert Southey object as a base Americanism, as discussed in Chapter 2.3?

5. Which of the following groups of foreign immigrants does Mencken not attribute influence over American English in Chapter 6.4?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What were some of the reasons that many immigrants changed their names upon arriving in America?

3. What was the overall effect of Noah Webster on the spelling of American English?

4. In what does Mencken evidently delight concerning the speech of American, in Chapter 1.5?

5. What does Mencken mean by saying that Americans have "a habit of achieving short-cuts in speech by a process of agglutination"?

6. What are the different significations of "guy" in America and England, as described by Mencken?

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

8. Describe H.L. Mencken's attitude towards the American tendencies in the formation of new words.

9. In Chapter 1.2, whom does Mencken identify as chiefly responsible for the inhibiting of an American dialect?

10. What is the difference between "rock" in English and in American, as explained in Chapter 2.4?

(see the answer keys)

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