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English Language Trivia

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  • Which of the following is the longest word that appears in a play by William Shakespeare?
    disproportionableness
    incomprehensibleness
    honorificabilitudinitatibus
    sesquipedalian
  • Syntax is the study of the structure of ______.
    sentences
  • Supportive terms such as ‘oh’ and ‘really’ are examples of
    backchanneling
    hedging
    fillers
    clarifying
  • Which of the following is probably the most widely used English word throughout the world?
    okay
    internet
    sex
    movie
  • Laboratory → lab, gymnasium → gym, or influenza → flu are examples of what type of word-formation?
    affixation
    derivation
    clipping
    blending
  • True or False? The longest word in English is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
    True
  • True or False? From the dialects and vocabulary of Germanic peoples—Angles, Saxons, and Jutes—who settled in Britain in the 5th century
    True
  • How many diphthongs are there in English?
    8
    5
    7
    6
  • Roughly what proportion of the world's population is competent in English?
    one in 10
    one in 1000
    one in 100
    one in four
  • Name one process of word formation.
    compounding, affixation, blending, clipping, acronym formation
  • Approximately how many words are added to English dictionaries each year?
    1,000
    300
    6,000
    10,000
  • Which country contains the largest English-speaking population in the world?
    India
    China
    The United States
    Australia
  • What is the study of meaning in context?
    phonetics
    semantics
    pragmatics
    onomastics
  • Which of the following is generally regarded as the first genuine dictionary in English?
    Glossographia by Thomas Blount
    Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson
    An American Dictionary of the English Language by Noah Webst
    A Table Alphabeticall by Robert Cawdrey
  • What is the shortest grammatically correct sentence in English?
    Go!
  • Which one of the following observations applies to the word typewriter?
    It can be typed using only the top row of keys on a standard
    It's the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
    It's a palindrome
    It appeared in Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English La
  • In approximately how many countries does the English language have official or special status?
    50
    75
    10
    35
  • Approximately how old is the English language?
    1,100 years old
    1,800 years old
    1,400 years old
    900 years old
  • Which of the following terms refers to the substitution of a more offensive word or phrase for one considered less offensive?
    dramatism
    euphemism
    orthophemism
    dysphemism
  • Now, well, you know, and like are examples of
    backchanneling
    slang
    discourse markers
    intensifiers
  • A sound formed by combining two vowels in a single syllable is called a ______.
    diphthong
  • What is polysemy?
    When a word form has multiple meanings that may potentially be related to one another?
  • Smog ← smoke + fog is an example of blending. Give another example.
    _______
  • An _____ is a word derived from the proper name of a person or place.
    exonym
    eponym
    acronym
    paronym
  • True or False? In compound nouns, the stress is usually on the second syllable
    False (it's usually on the first)
  • What is the negative counter-part to synonymy called?
    Antonymy
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