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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 is the universal substitute for the word "ye" as described in Chapter 6.2?
(a) Thou.
(b) The.
(c) Thee.
(d) You.

2. What word did Webster argue should have its vowel sound changed to "ee" instead of "eh"?
(a) Heft.
(b) Beef.
(c) Deaf.
(d) Beer.

3. What term did John Witherspoon coin, framing it within the context of vulgarity?
(a) Anglophile.
(b) Briticism.
(c) Americanism.
(d) Scientist.

4. What word did the editor of the Westminster Gazette substitute for the incomprehensible dash in the mangled Americanism of Rupert Brooke?
(a) Brains.
(b) Bottom.
(c) Jugs.
(d) Boots.

5. What does Mencken state is neglected by those who are professional trained to investigate it?
(a) Formal grammar.
(b) The vulgate.
(c) Idiosyncrasies.
(d) Philological anomalies.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the English "secondary school" correspond to in American?

2. How many pages in "The King's English" are dedicated to explaining the distinction between "will" and "shall"?

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

4. What difference in pronunciation does Mencken state most sharply distinguishes the two dialects?

5. What letter, when preceding a consonant, greatly irritated Henry James like a "morose grinding of the back teeth?"

Short Essay Questions

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

2. In what ways is the noun principally abused in vulgar American?

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

4. How does a word move from legitimate vocabulary to slang vocabulary, according to Mencken?

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

6. With what sort of distinctions is Chapter 7.2 principally concerned?

7. What is indicated by dominance of American terms derived from German that are related to eating and drinking?

8. As explained in Chapter 6.4, why are Americans more conceding to foreign loan-words than the English are?

9. What characterizes the differences between American and English usage of lower-class idioms?

10. What two factors are discussed in Chapter 9.5 as contributing to Mencken's distress in the "movement toward the identity in form" and why?

(see the answer keys)

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