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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. From what language does the English word "moose" come?

2. Who protested the adoption of the broad "a" in an 1857 work entitled "The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table"?

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

4. What difference in pronunciation does Mencken state most sharply distinguishes the two dialects?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the most common incorrect usage of the adjective in vulgar American?

2. In Chapter 1.2, whom does Mencken identify as chiefly responsible for the inhibiting of an American dialect?

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

4. What was the predominant attitude of philologists towards the study of American slang, at the time of Mencken's writing?

5. What is the relationship between the mean and nasty labor done in the United States and the desire of immigrants to change their names?

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

7. What, in Chapter 1.3, is the main conflict of ideas that Mencken puts forth?

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

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Through what Mencken claims concerning the nature of slang, in Chapter 11, it could be construed as a microcosm of The American Language as a whole. Write an essay investigating this claim. What are the chief characteristics of any linguistic development? What are the chief characteristics of the development of slang? How are they alike? How are they different? What processes do they undergo? What is significant and mutually relevant in these processes?

Essay Topic 2

Much of Mencken's The American Language is devoted to the study of expansion of the American vocabulary. Write an essay examining the various sources and means by which new words enter the American dialect, as well as the impact they have. From where do new words come? What prompts the admission of new words into the vocabulary? What languages have had the most influence on the American vocabulary? What does the American dialect do with its new words? What are the effects that new words can and do have on the American dialect? Be sure to use specific examples.

Essay Topic 3

A major part of the analysis of linguistic development provided by Mencken in The American Language is the relationship between language and the territory in which it changes. Construct a well-formed analytical essay that investigates this connection. What are the reasons behind it? What are the consequences of this connection in England and in America? How can territorial linguistic development be seen in the various regions of America? What is the common ground between change and territory upon which this connection is founded?

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