The 400-year-old New England town, with its 25,000 residents, is swearing off swearing! Despite the fact that it sits near the suggestively-named Assawompset Pond, anyone who curses in public there can be fined $20.

Just a few miles down the Massachusetts coast from Plymouth Rock, where the first Pilgrims landed in 1620, Middleborough citizens have had enough! They’re tired of hearing visitors and their own teenagers walking the streets loudly mouthing dirty words. The offenders obviously hear them constantly on TV, movies, stand-up comedy and rock music performances.

We don’t often get editorial on our travel site, but we say good for Middleborough! We did two wartime Navy hitches and know all about cursing. However, since the incursions of sleazy rock music and curse-filled TV and movies, the language of  Will Shakespeare, Winston Churchill and Tom Jefferson has been dragged way down into the gutter.

When we travel in New Jersey, Las Vegas, Hollywood and elsewhere in the U.S., we’re tired of hearing juveniles in actual years and/or that mental level trying to outcurse each other.  

For more information about the historic and once-again-pleasant Massachusetts town, go to www.middleborough.com/