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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What country's works dominated the reading habits of the American colonists in the latter 18th century?

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

3. What does John S. Farmer describe the Western vernacular as being?

4. What is the English meaning of the phrase "to carry on"?

5. Which of the following did the African slaves NOT introduce to American English?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. 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?

4. In general, what is the relationship between foreign names for locations and American pronunciations?

5. Who does Grandgent say are under the influence of the British in terms of their pronunciation?

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

7. What is the significance of the quote from Sayce at the beginning of Chapter 9.9 that "Language begins with sentences, not with single words"?

8. To what does Mencken ascribe the withdrawal of the National Education Association from the simplified spelling campaign?

9. What is the character of the argument presented by the Society for Pure English in the quoted caveat?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Of all the various ways in which the American and British dialects are divergent, perhaps the most obvious is the distinct spellings of words. Analyze the significance of this distinction and put forth an argument in support of one or the other spelling paradigm. How do the two dialects go about determining the spelling of a word? What are the principles that ought to be at work in the conventional acceptance of a word's spelling? Which of these principles is the most important? To which principles does each dialect adhere? What is the greater significance of this adherence?

Essay Topic 2

Part of the driving force behind the divergence of American from British, is what Americans rather distinctly desire to express in language, according to Mencken. Write an essay discussing these desires of which Mencken implicitly speaks. What is the American concerned with in his language? What obstacles in linguistic form can stand between him and his desires? What then happens to these obstacles? What happens to language overall? Are there any dangers in these tendencies? If so, what are they? What is the fundamental relationship between the desires of a populace and their linguistic form?

Essay Topic 3

The primary conflict voiced by Mencken in The American Language is that which exists between the spirit of linguistic conservationism and a spirit of linguistic innovation. Analyze this conflict as it is presented throughout the book and report insightfully on the strengths and weaknesses of each spirit. How is each spirit superior to the other? How is it inferior? Is there a valid argument to be made in favor absolutely of one or the other? What arguments may be presented in support of each? What are the arguments that may be presented against each? Is there a plausible compromise that may be made between the two?

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