Linguistics and Beowulf, According to Pop Quiz Responses

Linguistics and Beowulf, According to Pop Quiz Responses 09/14/2011

I had intended to let TAs grade this quiz, but as I skimmed some of the short answers I found that I just had to read – and copy – them all. Me? Amuse myself at the expense of my students? Perish the thought!

Two of the groups who came to England and helped create our language were the Saxons and the Angels. Middle English is a combo of Scottish and Polish. Shield Shaftson is the first person to be killed by Grendel. He is a soldier and then he dies. Shield is Hrothgar's best friend who is killed by Grendel's mom. Hrothgar is a king who deals with Grendel's bullcrap. He builds a meatball which is kind of like a bunny ranch or cool house where people party every night in. It is a temple-like structure. Grendel is an ugly swamp beast or demond. He attacks Hrothgar's people because he is grumpy and they annoy him with their constant partying. Grendel attacks them because of what they did to his mom. Beowulf rips off Grendel's arm with his bear hands. He ends up getting his arm ripped off. Grendel kicks his head off, with no weapons. He kills Grendel's mom by swimming down to her layer and kills her by cutting her head with a sword blessed by the giants that he finds in the cave. He used a shine sword and cutts her kneck. Fifty years pasted. Beowulf needs the gold that is in the serpent den so he has to defeat a golden flamethrowing dragon. In his final battle Beowulf must defeat himself.