Artist," was presented at the Little Theatre there, and during its run, on February 26, 1916, the /Public Ledger/ reprinted some of the dialogue. One of the characters in the piece is /A Virgin/. At every occurrence a change was made to /A Young Girl/. Apparently, even /virgin/ is still regarded as too frank in Philadelphia.[41] Fifty years [Pg129] ago the very word /decent/ was indecent in the South: no respectable woman was supposed to have any notion of the difference between /decent/ and /indecent/. In their vocabularies of opprobrium and profanity English and Americans diverge sharply. The English /rotter/ and /blighter/ are practically unknown in America, and there are various American equivalents that are never heard in England. A /guy/, in the American vulgate, simply signifies a man; there is not necessarily any disparaging significance. But in English, high or low, it means one who is making a spectacle of himself. The derivative verb, /to guy/, is unknown in English; its nearest equivalent is /to spoof/, which is unknown in American. The average American, I believe, has a larger vocabulary of profanity than the average Englishman, and swears a good deal more, but he attempts an amelioration of many of his oaths by softening them to forms with no apparent meaning. /Darn/ (=/dern/=/durn/) for /damn/ is apparently of English origin, but it is heard ten thousand times in America to once in England. So is /dog-gone/. Such euphemistic written forms as /damphool/ and /damfino/ are also far more common in this country. /All-fired/ for /hell-fired/, /gee-whiz/ for /Jesus/, /tarnal/ for /eternal/, /tarnation/ for /damnation/, /cuss/ for /curse/, /goldarned/ for /God-damned/, /by gosh/ for /by God/ and /great Scott/ for /great God/ are all Americanisms; Thornton has traced /all-fired/ to 1835, /tarnation/ to 1801 and /tarnal/ to 1790. /By golly/ has been found in English literature so early as 1843, but it probably originated in America; down to the Civil War it was the characteristic oath of the negro slaves. Such terms as /bonehead/, /pinhead/ and /boob/ have been invented, perhaps, to take the place of the English /ass/, which has a flavor of impropriety in America on account of its identity in sound with the American pronunciation of /arse/.[42] At an earlier day /ass/ was always differentiated by making it /jackass/. Another word that is improper in America but not in England is /tart/. To an Englishman the word connotes sweetness, and so, if he be of the lower orders, he may apply [Pg130] it to his sweetheart. But to the American it signifies a prostitute, or, at all events, a woman of too ready an amiability.