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This test consists of 5 short answer questions and 1 (of 3) essay topics.
Short Answer Questions
1. What is the English equivalent of the American Main Street?
2. According to the "Vocabulary of the A.E.F.," what percentage of the American military vocabulary was at least somewhat indecent?
3. What military slang term refers to the sunburned necks of the Marines?
4. What spelling change is made from English to American in words such as "connection"?
5. Which two letters did the American ethnologist McGee insist were his first name and should not be followed by periods?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
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?
Essay Topic 2
Through what Mencken claims concerning the nature of slang, in Chapter 11, it could be construed as a microcosm of The American Language as a whole. Write an essay investigating this claim. What are the chief characteristics of any linguistic development? What are the chief characteristics of the development of slang? How are they alike? How are they different? What processes do they undergo? What is significant and mutually relevant in these processes?
Essay Topic 3
An important distinction, which Mencken makes in discussing the nature of the American language, is between the proper speech of literate Americans and the common speech of what he calls the proletariat. Write an essay discussing this distinction and its ultimate significance. According to what Mencken has written, is there a genuine distinction between the two? Which of the two does Mencken appear to favor? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each, the proper and the improper, the formal and the informal? What arguments may be made in defense of each?
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This section contains 332 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) |
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