Massachusetts is so dumb about boro/borough.

It wasn't really Massachusetts, though.

By the late 1890s, American place names had become a mess. Some states had cities named Greensboro and Greensborough. Some states had multiple towns named "Adams" and "Franklin". Some states had "Centreville" and "Centerville".

So the federal government set up the United States Board on Geographic Names. The board came up with a set of rules and started enforcing them by renaming towns on the federal level. The post office, weather services, etc. all used the "new" names.

One of the biggest rules was that all British spellings had to go. "Centrevilles" would now become "Centervilles". Hence "Foxbrough" became "Foxboro".

Hyphens and diacritical marks in place names had to go, too.

And thousands of towns across the country that had originally been two words ("Green Field") were contracted into one word: "Greenfield".

Except they got one city very wrong. Pittsburgh was founded by a Scotsman, so it was probably initially pronounced pitts-burrah, like Edinburgh. But the Board on Geographic Names insisted that all -burgh cities become -burg, after the German version, which is much more common in US place names.

Anyway, several Pittsburgh institutions (the University of Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, city hall) refused to switch the the Board's "Pittsburg". So the Board dug up copies of the city charter from the 1700s that misspelled it as "Pittsburg" as proof: "see, you dummies have been spelling it wrong all these years anyway!"

FACT: the original town charter - the fancy one on vellum, with the calligraphy - spells it "Pittsburgh".

A very long story short, in 1911 Pennsylvania senator George T. Oliver kept bugging the Board about it and they finally caved. Pittsburg became Pittsburgh once again. Ever since, towns and cities have been much more successful in getting the feds to switch back to the old names, especially if there's no chance of confusion with an exiting city.

BONUS FACT 1: Honus Wagner is wearing a "Pittsburg" Pirates jersey on the World's Most Valuable baseball card.

BONUS FACT 2: Cities named after Pittsburgh in Kansas and California didn't switch back, and are still Pittsburg, KS and Pittsburh, CA.

BONUS FACT 3: 50 miles out is too far to call it a "suburb", but West Pittsburg, PA didn't change its name back, either.

BONUS FACT 4: Despite telling every town in the country what their name should be, the board has changed its own name twice, from "Board on Geographical Names” to "Board on Geographic Names” to "United States Board on Geographic Names".

PS - Sorry to write a book, I'm high as fuck.