Cursing on a river on a sunny afternoon may land a young man in jail under an ancient American law.
Mr Timothy Joseph Boomer goes on trial later this week for letting loose with f-word profanities when he fell out of a canoe on a quiet river in Michigan last August. He was charged with violating a 102-year-old law which makes it punishable with up to 90 days in jail or a $100 fine to curse in the presence of women and children.
But the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has sprung to Mr Boomer's defence saying that the law infringes the right to free speech under the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
The case, in the rural Arenac county north of Detroit, has aroused national interest and has become part of a wide-ranging debate in America over whether "civility" in society has become a Victorian relic.
A first attempt by the ACLU to have the anti-cursing law declared unconstitutional failed when a judge ruled that Mr Boomer's outburst was not protected speech because there was "no discernible expression of thought, idea or concept". The judge did overturn the part of the law referring to women on the grounds that all adults must be treated equally.
In his criminal trial beginning on Thursday, Mr Boomer, a 25-year-old computer programmer, will plead not guilty. He has said that he will apologise to the Smith family who got an earful of his profanity. Mrs Tammy Smith tried to put her hands over the ears of her two-year-old daughter, Samantha, but her husband could not do the same for five-year-old Casey as he was trying to paddle away from the irate Mr Boomer.
But a deputy sheriff was on hand and the fatal summons was issued. Civil libertarians have awarded their annual "Muzzle Award" to Mr Richard Vollbach Jnr, who is prosecuting Mr Boomer, but he is unfazed. He concedes that many of Arenac County residents probably use the f-word Mr Boomer is charged with uttering. "I can go days without hearing that word," Mr Vollbach told the Washington Post, "and then I'll hear it. Maybe it's me who uses it but I don't do it when I know or should know that there are children in the area."
The ACLU lawyer, Mr William Street, insists that the scene of the crime is "a wildnerness" and that Mr Boomer could not have known children would appear. "If you can't swear in the middle of the wildnerness, where the heck can you?" he asks.