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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. According to Mencken, the English opposition to American spelling transcends the academic and takes on the character of what?
(a) The patriotic.
(b) The political.
(c) The ethical.
(d) The religious.

2. Which still-popular German given name survives today, with a slight change in spelling, as Mencken reports in Chapter 10.2?
(a) Hans.
(b) Franz.
(c) Wilhelm.
(d) Karl.

3. According to the "Vocabulary of the A.E.F.," what percentage of the American military vocabulary was at least somewhat indecent?
(a) 25%.
(b) 50%.
(c) 8%.
(d) 12%.

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

5. Which organization produced a prospectus in 1913 that warned against extreme English conservatism in the spelling of foreign loan-words?
(a) British Literary Association.
(b) Simplified Spelling Board.
(c) National Education Association.
(d) Society for Pure English.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which of the following nations does Mencken not list as having more interesting war slang than the Americans during the Great War?

2. As what part of speech does vulgar American consider the word "self" within the spirit of the language?

3. Which adjectival prefix does Mencken state is confined to the more sophisticated classes?

4. Who does Mencken state are the true makers of grammar in Chapter 9.1?

5. According to Mencken, the word "none" is a degenerate composition of what two words?

(see the answer keys)

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