View a FREE sample

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What "great humorist" does Mencken cite in Chapter 1.3 as "celebrating 'the vigorous new vernacular of the occidental plains and mountains'"?

2. According to Benjamin Franklin, what was roughly the population of the colonies in 1751?

3. What is the physical basis to which the nasal twang of Americans is ascribed?

4. What vowel sound was dominant in 18th century New England pronunciation, despite common protests to the contrary?

5. What word does Mencken find Dr. John Dewey using in place of the word "opium?"

Short Essay Questions

1. What style of writing does Mencken advocate concerning euphemisms in Chapter 4.4?

2. Characterize the intentions and effects of the renaming done by the Geographical Board, according to Mencken.

3. What is revealed by the attitudes of the English conservatives in Australia towards American spelling?

4. Aside from numbering and lettering, what is the principal way in which American and English styles of naming streets are divergent?

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

6. What typifies the difference in the use of honorifics between Americans and the English?

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

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

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

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

A significant contributor to the present state of the American language is the influx of foreign words, particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries. Compose an essay analyzing the impact and influences of these various foreign words. What particular contributions have they made to the language? How do they reflect the overall composition of the American populace? How have these words themselves changed? How have they changed the language overall? How do all of these changes indicate the tendencies of the American English dialect?

Essay Topic 2

At the root of the divergence of American from British was the spirit of the Revolution. Write an essay responding to the following questions: What was the nature of the revolutionary spirit? Why did it desire to distinguish itself from England? Why did this desire carry over to language? How was it practical and how impractical? What do these impracticalities reveal about the nature of the spirit? How did this spirit directly influence the American dialect? How did it indirectly influence it? For how long did this spirit continue to influence, directly or indirectly, the American language? What is significant about the relationship between this spirit and the language?

Essay Topic 3

An interesting part of speech, according to the analysis Mencken provides, is that of the pronoun. Already a linguistic shortcut, it becomes the subject of even more reductionist changes. Analyze this tendency in an essay, which thoroughly explicates the modern American pronoun. What is the function of the pronoun? For what does it serve as a substitute? What are its relationships with other parts of speech? How do these various elements tend towards the elision of pronouns with other parts of speech? What is significant about this tendency to elide pronouns?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 899 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample