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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In which city are the French names of streets reported by Mencken to be beautiful but so barbarously pronounced as to be unrecognizable by a Frenchman?
(a) Baton Rouge.
(b) Houston.
(c) Lafayette.
(d) New Orleans.

2. Mencken reports hearing of a German named "Knoche," who to avoid being called "Nokky," changed his name to what?
(a) Nock.
(b) Knox.
(c) Knowles.
(d) Nixon.

3. Who was the author of the couplet that Mencken quotes: "For thou art a girl as much brighter than her / As he was a poet sublimer than me"?
(a) Matthew Prior.
(b) Percy Bysse Shelley.
(c) Matthew Arnold.
(d) John Keats.

4. In what year did the National Education Association withdraw from the campaign for simplified spelling?
(a) 1914.
(b) 1899.
(c) 1907.
(d) 1921.

5. According to Mencken, the word "none" is a degenerate composition of what two words?
(a) No one.
(b) Not one.
(c) Not on.
(d) No tone.

Short Answer Questions

1. From which of the following have the English changed their spelling?

2. To how many in number does the comparative adjective relate?

3. What is the name of the professor who advocates the assimilation and alteration of the spelling and accentuation of foreign words?

4. Who does Mencken quote as saying, "There is no part of the world where nomenclature is so rich, poetical, humorous and picturesque as in the United States of America"?

5. Who was responsible for the endowment to the Simplified Spelling Board?

(see the answer keys)

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