View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. From what language does the English word "moose" come?

2. Which of the following did the African slaves NOT introduce to American English?

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

4. Which of the following groups of foreign immigrants does Mencken not attribute influence over American English in Chapter 6.4?

5. The prudish reluctance to name what sort of diseases hindered proper preventative information?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What influence does Mencken credit the Protestant Episcopal Church with about American adoption of Briticisms?

3. What effect did the exploration of new territory have on the language of the American settlers, as described in Chapter 2.3?

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

5. What, in Chapter 1.3, is the main conflict of ideas that Mencken puts forth?

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

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

8. What does Mencken intimate by the assertion that the "inner spirit of English" has inclined steadily towards saying "I have go" for a thousand years?

9. What is the relationship that Mencken identifies between French pronunciation and the pronunciation of Southerners?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Although American had changed drastically by the time Mencken wrote The American Language, in 1921, it has clearly changed drastically since then, as well. Examine, in an analytical essay, some of the more significant changes since then. What new words have come into popular usage? What then popular Americanisms have faded out almost altogether? Has the language changed as significantly since 1921 as it did between any other comparable span of time? If so, defend your answer with specific examples. Finally, what is the characteristic of the American language as revealed by comparing its present state with that it was characterized by Mencken as having when he wrote The American Language?

Essay Topic 2

Part of the driving force behind the divergence of American from British, is what Americans rather distinctly desire to express in language, according to Mencken. Write an essay discussing these desires of which Mencken implicitly speaks. What is the American concerned with in his language? What obstacles in linguistic form can stand between him and his desires? What then happens to these obstacles? What happens to language overall? Are there any dangers in these tendencies? If so, what are they? What is the fundamental relationship between the desires of a populace and their linguistic form?

Essay Topic 3

Compose an essay analyzing the Americanization of foreign names, as presented in The American Language. How are they Americanized? What characterizes the Americanization of surnames? What characterizes the Americanization of given names? What influences their Americanization? Why are they Americanized? What is lost by their Americanization? What is the result of this tendency to conformity?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 931 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample