Other questions in this quiz

2. What is an idiom?

  • Sayings that don't make sense if they are literally taken
  • words that have changed over time
  • Words that have gone out of use

3. Why did contractions go out of fashion in the 18th century?

  • Because they were only used in text messages
  • Because people with a prescriptivist attitude like Jonathan Swift complained they were 'corrupting' English
  • Because people became lazy and did not like to use them

4. What is Conversion?

  • Where new prefixes or suffixes are added to an existing word
  • When a new word is created because an existing word changes class
  • Advances in medicine, science and technology

5. Whose publication called 'A Dictionary of the English Language' (1755) had a strong influence on standardising spelling?

  • William Caxton's
  • Samuel Johnson's
  • Robert Lowth's

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