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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 9.8 | Chapter 9.9.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What letter, when preceding a consonant, greatly irritated Henry James like a "morose grinding of the back teeth?"
(a) T.
(b) R.
(c) G.
(d) E.

2. Which of the following groups of immigrants does Mencken claim have a profound effect on not only the American vocabulary, but also its pronunciation and idiom?
(a) Irish.
(b) Italian.
(c) Scottish.
(d) Danish.

3. In what sort of languages are double negatives "perfectly allowable"?
(a) Teutonic.
(b) Romance.
(c) Semitic.
(d) Asiatic.

4. In what language did the American derivative "coyote" originate?
(a) Aztec.
(b) Mayan.
(c) French.
(d) Spanish.

5. What is frequently omitted in phrases indicated desire or intent, as indicated in Chapter 9.9?
(a) Verbs of action.
(b) Adjectival modifiers.
(c) The subject noun(s).
(d) Adverbial modifiers.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which word do Americans use for "angry" that was once an English provincialism considered base?

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

3. What purpose does the double negative primarily serve?

4. What does Sayce say that language is composed of in 1879?

5. According to Mencken, the name of what game puzzles etymologists?

(see the answer key)

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