RESIDENTS in Middleborough, a town near Boston, will be fined $20 for swearing in public. At a town meeting in Middleborough, residents voted 183-50 to approve a proposal from the police chief to impose the penalty. Officials insist the proposal was not intended to censor casual or private conversations, but instead to crack down on loud, profanity-laden language used by teens and other young people in the downtown area and public parks. “I’m really happy about it,” Mimi Duphily, a store owner, said after the vote. “I’m sure there’s going to be some fallout, but I think what we did was necessary.” Ms Duphily, who runs an auto-parts store, who is among the residents against swearing which can make customers uncomfortable.        –TG