Boro or borough: What’s the proper spelling for Massachusetts towns?

BOSTON – From Foxboro to Southborough, Northborough to Westborough, if there’s a borough, we’re thorough in being totally complicated. 

In Marlborough, you may see two spellings on the identical road. One signal says Marlborough the opposite reads Marlboro. We noticed that oddity in each borough besides Attleboro. 

Mayor Cathleen DeSimone spelled it out for me: “A-t-t-l-e-b-o-r-o.” 

“We dropped the u-g-h a very long time in the past,” DeSimone stated. “1914 to be precise.” 

There are 11 boroughs in Massachusetts. Ten of them formally spell their title with an “o-u-g-h.” Attleboro is the one one formally ending in “o-r-o.” 

The mayor joked, “I might wish to assume Attleboro is forward of the sport, approach forward of the sport and they need to attempt to catch as much as us. We innovate we transfer and shake.” 

Our bevy of boroughs comes from our previous ties with England. Tons of of years in the past, a borough was a walled off group that was self-governed. Our boroughs haven’t got partitions. Our ancestors simply appreciated the names. 

Peter Drummey is a historian with the Massachusetts Historic Society. Drummey says the boroughs again in England had been all the time “o-u-g-h.” However we had been abbreviating with durations and apostrophes as early as 1800 to suit the names on official state maps. 

Drummey says with a smile, “It is all so completely Massachusetts in that it is splendidly idiosyncratic. If everybody goes in a single course, individuals need to go within the different course.” 

There’s just one state that has greater than our 11 boroughs. North Carolina has 22, however they’re all “o-r-o” boroughs. You need extra confusion? Nicely, the Mass. Division of Transportation makes use of the shorter “o-r-o” model for readability. Additionally, fewer letters imply a barely smaller and cheaper indicators. 

In Westborough, residents instructed me they just like the “fancier” spelling. The proprietor of a downtown boutique says, “I am from Eire initially. My grandmother did spelling with me each Saturday morning. And he or she would kill me if I did o-r-o.” 

However the of us in Attleboro will inform you they’re constant and the mayor joked that she is persistently saving time and power writing three much less letters. 

“The best way I write and textual content is fairly dangerous,” DeSimone stated. “So, I in all probability save not less than 10 minutes a yr! So, I can take an extended lunch, a bit longer stroll.”