Tonya Carrington got a lot more than she bargained for when she picked up a copy of Scrabble 2007 on DS for her son Ethan, says the Daily Mail today.

The game was bought as part of a 2-for-£25 deal at Asda, and she must have thought she was on pretty safe ground with such a tried and tested family favourite as Scrabble. However, instead of improving eight year-old Ethan’s mastery of the English language she found that the 3+ rated software was actually teaching him “a string of vile swear words”.

More specifically a potty-mouthed AI opponent named Camilla produced words such as “Tits” - defined as the common garden bird or, er, you know… - as well as “Sh**”, which has a rather less ambiguous meaning. And then, adding schoolyard insult to intellectual injury, Camilla pulled a masterstroke, playing “F***ers” for a triple word score and winning the match into the bargain. Well played, madam!

Needless to say Ethan was swiftly banned from playing the game - doubtless to his enormous chagrin - and mum was on the warpath looking for answers. To which end the Mail took up her cause and a sheepish Ubisoft rep suggested that she utilise the game’s Junior setting which prevents such naughty words popping up unexpectedly. Not especially helpful, particularly since, as Ms. Carrington notes, there doesn’t appear to be any mention of such parental controls in the game’s manual. In any case what the f*** are swearwords doing in a 3+ rated game in the first place…?