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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 8.3 | Chapter 8.4.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. According to Mencken, the English opposition to American spelling transcends the academic and takes on the character of what?
(a) The religious.
(b) The political.
(c) The patriotic.
(d) The ethical.

2. Which of the following is a term used by philologists to indicate the "instinctive search, etymologically unsound, for short roots in long words"?
(a) Formative de-synthesizing.
(b) Deconstructing.
(c) Back-formation.
(d) Etymanalyzing.

3. Who is the author of "Travels in North America," published in 1827?
(a) Basil Hall.
(b) Henry Alford.
(c) Louis Untermeyer.
(d) Charles Astor Bristed.

4. Which is the second factor that Mencken identifies as an impediment to the growth of the American language in Chapter 3.1?
(a) Political disharmony.
(b) Regional diversity.
(c) Lack of a national literature.
(d) Territorial expansiveness.

5. What term did John Witherspoon coin, framing it within the context of vulgarity?
(a) Scientist.
(b) Briticism.
(c) Anglophile.
(d) Americanism.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the American substitute for the English word "tin"?

2. What does Mencken list as dominant the English alternative for the word "mail"?

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

4. Which Founding Father is said to have sought to establish a new American alphabet?

5. What English word does the author of "Men and Manners" lament about the American re-signification?

(see the answer key)

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