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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 does Mencken state is neglected by those who are professional trained to investigate it?

2. How many dialects dominate American English, according to Chapter 1.5?

3. What word best describes the English attitude towards the adoption of foreign loan-words, in contrast to the American attitude?

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

5. What sound did Webster object to inserting in words such as "gradual" and "nature," before the "u"?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. What influence does Mencken credit the Protestant Episcopal Church with about American adoption of Briticisms?

4. In what ways is the noun principally abused in vulgar American?

5. In what way did the early political disunity of the United States hamper the growth of a national language, according to Mencken in Chapter 3.1?

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

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

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

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

There is a very notable and significant difference between the neologisms of the Americans and the British. Write an essay analyzing these differences, their sources, and what the neologisms reveal about the respective national characters. What is characteristic about the neologisms Mencken ascribes to Americans? What are the characteristics of those ascribed to the British? How are these different? How are they similar? How does each country come about fostering their neologisms? What do these methods and their sources reveal about the countries and their national characteristics, respectively?

Essay Topic 2

One of the hardest aspects of any language that is almost impossible to classify is the nuances of pronunciation. Write an essay analyzing the problems caused by the varieties and degrees of pronunciation. Have the difficulties it causes those who study the American language. What is the definition of pronunciation? How does Mencken treat of pronunciation? What are the ways in which it may change an auditor's understanding of a language? How is the American pronunciation divergent from the British? What particularities of the American pronunciation are significant in comprehension of the American language?

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay analyzing the nature of the relationship between the "melting pot" of American immigrant assimilation and the nomenclature that permeates the country. What are the evident influences of foreign languages on American names? How are these names Americanized? What is the general tendency of American-speakers in the employment and application of names to places and people? To what degree are the various names Americanized? What is the cause of Americanization of names? What is its result and what does it indicate about the American spirit?

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