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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 9, The Meeting of Minds.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. The author compared Murray's way of organizing his work on the Oxford English Dictionary to ______________.
(a) A taxi driver in traffic.
(b) A cook on call.
(c) A doctor in surgery.
(d) A general on a battlefield.

2. What would the definitive quotes show in the Oxford English Dictionary?
(a) What kinds of words they were.
(b) How words could be combined.
(c) Where these words were most used.
(d) How words had been used over centuries.

3. How did the audience react to the fact that hundreds of amateurs would be needed to take on such a project for a new dictionary?
(a) With shock.
(b) With happiness.
(c) With revolt.
(d) With sadness.

4. Why did many people write from abroad regarding Minor?
(a) To complain of his harrassment.
(b) To request his euthanizing.
(c) To ask for his autograph.
(d) To make sure he was being well looked after.

5. Why didn't Minor attend the great dictionary dinner?
(a) It was unclear.
(b) He had been arrested.
(c) He did not want to mix with underlings.
(d) He was sick.

Short Answer Questions

1. Trench argued that dictionaries should be histories of the life span of every word and that these lives should be ______.

2. What did the killer do immediately upon being arrested by police?

3. To which block was William Minor taken upon commitment to Broadmoor?

4. How did Mr. Trench define the importance of the English language insofar as Christianity?

5. How many years from Trench's speech about a new dictionary did the project actually get off the ground?

(see the answer key)

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