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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. According to Benjamin Franklin, what was roughly the population of the colonies in 1751?
(a) 500,000
(b) 1,000,000
(c) 50,000,000
(d) 10,000,000

2. Which term do English dictionaries all describe as an Americanism from the comparative list in Chapter 4.1, despite the English version being frequently used in America?
(a) Hog-pen.
(b) Freight.
(c) Railroad.
(d) Rooster.

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

4. Which word do Americans use for "angry" that was once an English provincialism considered base?
(a) Pissed.
(b) Mad.
(c) Furious.
(d) Irritated.

5. What "Anglomaniac affectation" did Noah Webster sneer at in 1789?
(a) Clinging to the silent "u" as in "honour."
(b) The broad "a."
(c) The literature of Fowler.
(d) The recalcitrance to neologisms.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Mencken, what did the first generations born in the New World value as a virtue over enterprise and resourcefulness?

2. What purpose does Miss Wittmann say is served by the shortening of word forms?

3. According to Mencken, the name of what game puzzles etymologists?

4. Who is the author of "Travels in North America," published in 1827?

5. The prudish reluctance to name what sort of diseases hindered proper preventative information?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What was Walt Whitman's role in the development of the national literature of the United States?

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

4. What typically causes the difficulties of the American when hearing the Englishman or vice versa, as explained in Chapter 7.1?

5. What characterizes the favorite slang phrases of the American soldier in World War I, according to Mencken?

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

7. What is Mencken's evident attitude towards the "wearing down" of vowel and consonant sounds in the vulgar American pronunciation?

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

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

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

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