Mother blasts DS Scrabble for profanity

What is it with the DS and profanity these days? Last week Nintendo managed to incur the blogosphere's amused criticism for putting into the hands of several journalists a version of Animal Crossing in which Baabara the Sheep addressed the player as 'N---A', and today The Escapist brings us news that Ubisoft's DS Scrabble is under fire for allowing swear words and their snidey homographs.

Apparently, Mother Tonya Carrington bought the game for her eight year-old son Ethan as a learning aid and was appalled to discover that the word 'TITS' was in its permissible vocabulary (in both the avian sense and as a slang word for female knockers.)

Also in there are the words 'F*CKERS' and 'TOKE'. The words 'SH*T', 'CR*P', 'AR*E' and both definitions of 'FL*NGE' may also be amongst the game's lexicon, but we can't say for sure at present.

Ms Carrington told - who else - the Daily Mail: "The worst thing is that there's an age rating of 3+ on the box and no advisory warning about adult language on the packaging at all. It's disgraceful. Scrabble is a game for families, but I've had to ban Ethan from playing this version because of the horrible words it uses. It's such a shame for him, because he loves Scrabble."

Of course, this isn't the first time Ubisoft has had to endure a Scrabble-related SH*TSTORM. Last year the publisher drew criticism for allowing the pejorative term 'LESBO' to creep into Junior Scrabble 2007.

Personally, I find it more offensive when opponents employ words that don't exist outside the realm of Scrabble - words like 'QI', and 'ES'. (I call these 'voscrabulary.') Or when Scrabulous players exploit the game's idiotic brokenness to try out every possible combination of their letters without penalty. The worst I ever came across was 'RETINARII.'

What the **** kind of ****ing word is that?