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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

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

3. Which Founding Father is said to have sought to establish a new American alphabet?
(a) John Hancock.
(b) George Washington.
(c) Benjamin Franklin.
(d) Thomas Jefferson.

4. What difference in pronunciation does Mencken state most sharply distinguishes the two dialects?
(a) The normative "-ary" suffix.
(b) The normative "ch."
(c) The normative "o."
(d) The normative "a."

5. What event does Mencken credit with strengthening the obfuscation of distinction between American and British English?
(a) The French Revolution.
(b) The advent of the transatlantic telephone line.
(c) The First World War.
(d) The bombing of London.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. Which letter of the alphabet do Americans differ in pronunciation from other English-speaking countries?

3. According to Mencken, democratic government is essentially government by whom?

4. What is the English word for a collection of colleges?

5. To what continent does Mencken attribute the acknowledgment of the differences between American and British English?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Describe H.L. Mencken's attitude towards the American tendencies in the formation of new words.

3. What principally causes the difficulty of the English people understanding the American speech as explained in Chapter 1.3?

4. How does a word move from legitimate vocabulary to slang vocabulary, according to Mencken?

5. For what reason did the early Americans wish to distinguish their language from that of the English?

6. Upon what does Mencken claim the art of American prose is based, in Chapter 9.2?

7. What chief cause does Mencken ascribes the backwardness of American war slang to?

8. What is indicated by dominance of American terms derived from German that are related to eating and drinking?

9. What typically causes the difficulties of the American when hearing the Englishman or vice versa, as explained in Chapter 7.1?

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

(see the answer keys)

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