History of the Language: QUIZ 5

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For each question, use the drop-down menu to select the appropriate choice for that question. Please read carefully, as each question can ask for very different sorts of information. Once you have chosen the best answer for each question, click on "Submit for Grading" to proceed.

1. Hamlet addresses the Ghost as THOU 
   in Act 1 because... 

   
   (click here) That is how one talked to ghosts He is disrespecting the ghost He loves the ghost He's a Dane

2. By the time of Shakespeare, THOU/THEE 
   had come to signify...

   
   (click here) Strictly the second person singular Respect for a superior Inferior status of the addressee Old-fashioned elitism

3. A marked increase in which of the 
   following is detectable between 1500 and 1700?

   
   (click here) Coordinate sentence structures The use of DO in interrogative and negative structures The use of THOU as the 2nd person singular pronoun The use of strong past participle forms

4. Cawdrey's A TABLE ALPHABETICAL was... 

   
   (click here) A Latin-English Dictionary A "hard-word list" An etymological dictionary An attempt to define all the words in English

5. Samuel Johnson's DICTONARY was 
   published in... 

   
   (click here) 1755 1776 1721 1747

6. The first attempt at a 
   comprehensive English dictionary was... 

   
   (click here) Cawdrey's TABLE ALPHABETICAL The Oxford English Dictionary Bailey's UNIVERSAL ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY Johnson's DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

7. Robert Cawdrey's A TABLE 
   ALPHABETICAL, often called the "first English dictionary," 
   was published in... 

   
   (click here) 1476 1492 1611 1604

8. If Johnson's DICTIONARY is "the culmination of the 
   first major effort to impose order on 
   the language," the second culmination of this effort must 
   be seen as...

   
   (click here) Ben Jonson's AN ENGLISH GRAMMAR Robert Lowth's SHORT INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH GRAMMAR Daniel Defoe's ESSAY ON PROJECTS

9. Defoe, Dryden, and Swift successfully 
   established an Academy for the English Language...
   
   

   
   (click here) TRUE FALSE

10. A DESCRIPTIVIST would judge which 
    of the following to be an ungrammatical structure?
    
    

    
    (click here) Between you and I Furious green ideas cat the scratched It ain't nobody

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