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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. According to Mencken, how do the English pronounce "been?"

2. Which of the early presidents does Mencken identify as archetypal of the new American?

3. Who "tries" a legal case in England?

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

5. Which of the following groups of foreign immigrants does Mencken not attribute influence over American English in Chapter 6.4?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. For what reason did the early Americans wish to distinguish their language from that of the English?

3. In general, how did Noah Webster influence American pronunciation?

4. From what tradition do names such as Faith, Hope, and Charity come, and what is significant about the continued use of these names?

5. 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?

6. What general problem of language does Mencken describe in Chapter 1.1?

7. What effect did the exploration of new territory have on the language of the American settlers, as described in Chapter 2.3?

8. Why does Mencken find the double negative an appreciable linguistic deviation?

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

10. In what does Mencken evidently delight concerning the speech of American, in Chapter 1.5?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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?

Essay Topic 2

Although American had changed drastically by the time Mencken wrote The American Language, in 1921, it has clearly changed drastically since then, as well. Examine, in an analytical essay, some of the more significant changes since then. What new words have come into popular usage? What then popular Americanisms have faded out almost altogether? Has the language changed as significantly since 1921 as it did between any other comparable span of time? If so, defend your answer with specific examples. Finally, what is the characteristic of the American language as revealed by comparing its present state with that it was characterized by Mencken as having when he wrote The American Language?

Essay Topic 3

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?

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