QUIZ: Do You Speak American?: English Language Facts

From OUPblog:

A wide-ranging account of American English, Richard Bailey’s "Speaking American" investigates the history and continuing evolution of our language from the sixteenth century to the present. When did English become American? What distinctive qualities made it American? What role have America’s democratizing impulses, and its vibrantly heterogeneous speakers, played in shaping our language and separating it from the mother tongue? Bailey asked himself these questions, now it’s time to ask yourself how well you really know your American English. We’ve composed a quiz for some Friday fun. Can you speak American?

Do You Speak American?

How much do you know about America's langage history?

1) What’s “the blab of the pave”? *

A description of the talk of Okies and others moving west during the Great Depression, typically used by urbanites in a derogatory way

A popular expression for how young “delinquents” talked in Northern California during the 1950s

Walt Whitman’s description of the way New Yorkers speak

A description of the way cement settles in intense heat used in the South, particularly around New Orleans

2) Which great event determined whether Shakespeare should be performed in American or British English in the US? *

American. The Astor Place Riot in New York in 1849, which pitted actor Edwin Forrest (American) against actor William Charles Macready (English).

English. 1823 legislation, for which aristocratic Carolinians educated in England lobbied, that Shakespeare’s plays be performed “in the manner in which they were written.”

American. Competing theaters set each other alight during the Great Chicago Fire, but the Wicker Park neighborhood rallied to save the Liberty Theater, then staging an American English production of Hamlet.

English. Following the introduction of sound in the 1920s, MGM’s British English movie production of Romeo & Juliet out-earned its American English competitors, so all studioes switched to English actors for future Shakespeare productions.

3) Where does the word “buckaroo” come from? *

Slang for ranch hands on the American frontier who were initially paid a dollar (“a buck”) to work for a rancher

Name given to young men at the stage of their equine apprenticeship when they would handle young male horses in the Colonial South

Buckra, meaning someone with power or knowledge in the Efik language of West Africa, which passed into American English via Barbados Creole

An invention of screenwriter and dime novelist John Grey for the silent western “Canyon of Fools”

4) What is “bisket”? *

A Boston expression for unleavened bread made from flour, salt, and water

A Yiddish expression for dough, sometimes found in New York English

A Chinook expression for a day when it doesn’t rain during the winter months

An alternate spelling of “biscuit” found in rural Alabama and Mississippi

5) In the 1980s, the song “Valley Girl” about the singer’s teenage daughter and her affinity for Valspeak (a word blend of “San Fernando Valley” and “speak”), unintentionally lead to an enormous popularity for this style of English. Which singer composed the song? *

Brian Wilson

Tom Waits

Frank Zappa

John Phillips

6) In the 1960s, California became associated with the New Age movement in spirituality and various ego-centered psychological therapies. These efforts produced which term that became widely known beyond California? *

bipolar disorder

ego-trip

get it together

all of the above

7) Between 1892 and 1928, millions of Europeans entered New York through the immigration facility on Ellis Island. As a result, their cultures (and languages) had an immense impact on the city. Which language was most influential in transforming New York? *

Polish

Yiddish

French

Italian

8) Which important factor made New Orleans the foundation of English for the Louisiana Purchase? *

A high influx of English speakers purchasing cheap territory

Thomas Jefferson deemed English the official language after purchasing it from the French

The introduction of the steamboat in the Mississippi waterway

None of the above

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Comments

[Fang1944]

09:46 AM on 02/22/2012

The answer for #3 is flat wrong. It comes from Spanish vaquero. See the obvious, people!

[Fang1944]

09:41 AM on 02/22/2012

"How much do you know about America's langage history?"

I know that it's language history.

[cdub1991]

01:54 PM on 02/21/2012

I think it's fair to say that one could speak fluent American one's entire life and not know the answer to any of those questions.

[rogerae]

06:09 PM on 02/20/2012

The language spoken by Americans is special and merits a new name "American". Once one stops calling it "English" the education arguments vanish- since every American will be taught using the American language and will naturally be expected to speak American.

[USHistoryMan]

01:33 PM on 02/20/2012

The explanation of buckaroo is absolutely incorrect, as a brief glance at a dictionary (or rudimentary knowledge of Spanish) would indicate. The word is a corruption of "vaquero," Spanish for cow herder.

[poeticjustice4all]

03:53 AM on 02/21/2012

Nice try.

[USHistoryMan]

07:19 AM on 02/21/2012

Was this not correct?

[Fang1944]

09:44 AM on 02/22/2012

Linguists don't use the term "corruption." The word was borrowed and Anglicized. The v was already pronounced as [b] in Spanish, and the vowels changed to fit the American English pattern.

[USHistoryMan]

01:07 PM on 02/22/2012

Thank you. I will be careful to avoid using the word corruption in similar cases in the future.

[PaticaDeGato]

01:15 PM on 02/20/2012

Is Yiddish actually more influential on American than Italian? I'm asking.

[Bike Commuter]

04:42 PM on 02/20/2012

I think they are saying it was more influential on English as it was spoken in New York.

[PaticaDeGato]

07:12 PM on 02/20/2012

But the Italian experience in NY was very similar to the Jewish experience there.....

Well, I am no linguist.

[Caryn Banker]

03:40 AM on 02/21/2012

If you've ever lived in NY, you know some yiddish! Culturally overall, Italian is probably equal in it's impact, but linguistically, Yiddish hands down, bubbulah. :))

[PaticaDeGato]

12:29 PM on 02/20/2012

Seemingly I do not speak English.

[lioness39]

02:02 PM on 02/20/2012

Don't feel badly. I flunked too. ;)

[forestlady]

10:36 AM on 02/20/2012

OK, third error I've found: Bipolar was a term used beginning in the 1950's - it didn't come from New Age vernacular.
"In the early 1950s, Karl Leonhard introduced the term bipolar to differentiate unipolar depression (Major Depressive Disorder) from bipolar depression. And in 1980, with the publication of the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the term manic depression was officially changed in the classification system to bipolar disorder."
http://bipolar.about.com/od/definingbipolardisorder/a/manic_depression_changes_names.htm

[katydid579]

08:16 AM on 02/21/2012

Perhaps it was popularized then as a more accurate descriptive term for manic depressive.

[forestlady]

10:25 AM on 02/20/2012

I grew up in California and was born in 1954. I saw the whole 60's thing happen in Los Angeles and San Francisco. There was no New Age movement then, not until much later, in the latter half of the 80's. They're wrong.

[katydid579]

08:21 AM on 02/21/2012

Really? I don't live in California, but I certainly remember the many new age treatments in the 60s and 70s. Beginning with everything from studying with a personal guru, EST, and primal scream therapy, and on and on. There was always some new way to explore the body, soul, and psyche. Maybe you are just identifying with the whole Shirley McLaine channeling and crystals sort of "new age".

[forestlady]

10:23 AM on 02/20/2012

They're wrong about buckaroo; it came from the Spanish word "vaquero". Spanish was spoken alot out west, because some of it was owned by Mexico and there were alot of Mexican ranches. There weren't many Creoles out West in those days.

[ewalter899]

08:32 PM on 02/20/2012

Well this is the HuffPost, they have to give Creoles credit for something.

[poeticjustice4all]

03:54 AM on 02/21/2012

Wow.

[Fang1944]

09:49 AM on 02/22/2012

Note that in Spanish the initial v is pronounced as a [b].

[bridgeman]

10:15 AM on 02/20/2012

Do You Speak American?

Ain't sure,but I rekkon I do, cuz I done real pretty on dat there quizy thing.

[playflute2]

09:59 AM on 02/20/2012

Well, apparently not. 2 out of 8. Like...what can I say.....like...apparently I don't do .......like, you know, much 'American'. :)

[AnaM]

05:56 AM on 02/20/2012

Like...I'm not sure...like...if you can call it...like...American English?

[HappyBrit]

05:41 AM on 02/20/2012

My wife is Scottish (I'm English), and I am amazed how many American English phrases and accents derive straight from Scottish, and probably Irish.

[NatTurner1]

09:47 AM on 02/20/2012

I am African American and I am amazed how man American English phrases and accents derive straight from Southern plantations, the inner city and black culture.

[davesf]

01:51 PM on 02/20/2012

Right on!

[HappyBrit]

04:15 PM on 02/20/2012

Yes, a wonderful melting pot indeed.

[InfinteShibumi]

01:13 PM on 02/20/2012

You've touched on a sore point. Further research would reveal the murky past of the Scots-Irish in America.

[HappyBrit]

04:09 PM on 02/20/2012

I wouldn't say that too loud in New York ;-)

[c-tom]

01:03 AM on 02/20/2012

I believe the 'Blab on the pave' means the same as the 'word on the street' so not how they speak but what they're talking about.