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

3. What English word does the author of "Men and Manners" lament about the American re-signification?

4. What is the second characteristic that Mencken attributes to American English in Chapter 1.5?

5. Which is the second factor that Mencken identifies as an impediment to the growth of the American language in Chapter 3.1?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Mencken imply about the vulgar American usage of forms such as "yourn," "hisn," and "theirn," in Chapter 9.4?

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

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

4. What characterizes the divergences of language usage that are cataloged in Chapter 4.2?

5. What principally causes the difficulty of the English people understanding the American speech as explained in Chapter 1.3?

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

7. How does the severity and conventional loyalty of grammarians influence those they attempt to educate?

8. What is the relationship that Mencken identifies between French pronunciation and the pronunciation of Southerners?

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In describing the ways in which American became a distinct dialect, Mencken ascribes great power to the development of a national literature. Examine the relationship between a national literature and a distinct national dialect. What effect does literature have on its readership? What effect does local speech have on authors? How do authors and the literature they write influence a whole nation? How do they help to make the speech of the whole nation distinct from other nations? What, in particular, emerges from the works of popular authors? What is the overall significance of the relationship between a national literature and a national dialect?

Essay Topic 2

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 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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