It's illegal to swear in Massachusetts, darn it! Who the heck knew that?

This was recently brought to our attention by the efforts of the state Legislature to repeal the Colonial era ordinances that make blasphemy a crime, punishable by a fine and a jail term. Holy Toledo!

The sponsor of the bill to abolish the blasphemy statute - along with a host of other antiquated "blue laws" handed down to us by the fun-loving Puritans, including a ban on spitting in the street - says the law is probably unenforceable. No - um - kidding!

In fact, the last time anyone was prosecuted under the statute was in the 1830s when a dissenting member of the clergy spent 60 days in jail for making what were alleged to be disparaging remarks about religion.

Technically, blasphemy is different from garden-variety swearing. In the strictest sense, blasphemy is impiety; that is, taking God's name in vain or speaking disrespectfully of the divine. And there are, of course, plenty of swears that don't invoke the name of the Almighty. But when you've got a full head of steam going thanks to, say, hitting your thumb with a hammer, or watching "The McLaughlin Group," it's not easy to limit yourself to just one species of profanity. One likes to mix in a bit of variety, if only to avoid repetition, doggone it. In the heat of the moment, one may well lose track of just whom one is asking to send what where.

The arguments to decriminalize the act make sense, but they might run into a little trouble. I don't mean from Puritan holdovers who would like to see us go back to using the stocks and pillory for infractions against public decorum.

I am referring to the other major news story of the week about the overly sensitive residents of one Massachusetts community who took issue with a cable sports network that trumpeted its local connections in a newspaper ad that said: "We can pronounce 'Worcester' without sounding like an 'Athol.'"

This resulted in the selectmen in the offended community writing a stern letter to the company, who promptly apologized and promised to stop running the ad.

But for many of us, the controversy just brought back that old joke about former Gov. Endicott "Chub" Peabody, a Harvard grad who was the very model of WASPy, preppie uprightness and earnest do-goodism. So, naturally, his detractors said that he was the only governor of the commonwealth to have three towns named after him: Peabody, Marblehead and, well, you know.

Still, it has to be said that rather than maintaining an unenforceable, and probably unconstitutional, law on the books, there are plenty of other ways the state could discourage people from swearing. Abolishing traffic rotaries would be a good place to start.

So, in conclusion, we should remember that swearing is a purely personal choice. Especially when dealing with the state Legislature.

It's enough to make you, well, spit, for goodness sake.

TOM REILLY is a Sun Chronicle news editor, a fact that makes some readers swear out loud. He can be reached at 508-236-0332 or at treilly@thesunchronicle.com. But keep it clean.