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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. According to Mencken, which title is subject to the greatest divergence in usage?

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

3. Mencken claims that Noah Webster contains less of the scientific inquirer and more of what?

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

5. What country's works dominated the reading habits of the American colonists in the latter 18th century?

Short Essay Questions

1. What characterizes the favorite slang phrases of the American soldier in World War I, according to Mencken?

2. What is significant about the divergent styles of naming of streets in America and England?

3. What characterizes the American attitude towards creating new names?

4. From what tradition do names such as Faith, Hope, and Charity come, and what is significant about the continued use of these names?

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

6. How is the advance of American spelling characterized in Chapter 8.3?

7. In general, what is the relationship between foreign names for locations and American pronunciations?

8. What is Mencken's evident attitude towards the "wearing down" of vowel and consonant sounds in the vulgar American pronunciation?

9. What is the relationship between the mean and nasty labor done in the United States and the desire of immigrants to change their names?

10. What is the significance of the quote from Sayce at the beginning of Chapter 9.9 that "Language begins with sentences, not with single words"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Much of Mencken's The American Language is devoted to the study of expansion of the American vocabulary. Write an essay examining the various sources and means by which new words enter the American dialect, as well as the impact they have. From where do new words come? What prompts the admission of new words into the vocabulary? What languages have had the most influence on the American vocabulary? What does the American dialect do with its new words? What are the effects that new words can and do have on the American dialect? Be sure to use specific examples.

Essay Topic 2

Mencken claims that the true American spirit is to be found not in the textbooks or proclamations of grammarians, but in the vulgar speech of the common people. Discuss this claim in a thoughtful analytical essay. What is the American spirit? Does Mencken clearly present what the American spirit is? Is his a defensible claim? How does the vulgar speech of the common person reflect this spirit? Is there some danger of degradation in linguistic form from prevalence of the vulgar speech? How does the vulgar speech reflect upon the American as a human person?

Essay Topic 3

An implicit premise throughout Mencken's work is that of the influence the overall national character and spirit has on the formation of a language. Write an essay discussing and analyzing the possibility and evidence of this connection. What are the national characters of Americans and Englishmen? How is this shown in their languages? What influence do these character traits have on linguistic formulations and habits of the people? What are some specific examples by which this influence can be seen? What is the ultimate significance of this connection?

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