Apple approves appallingly named Spasticity iOS shooter

Google the words 'Tiger Woods controversy' and you'll find a lot of stuff about text messages and porn stars. But go a bit further back and you'll find references to another clanging misjudgement.

In a press conference in 2006 Tiger admitted that he had been playing like a “spaz”.

Because the word 'spaz' is derived from the word 'spastic' or 'spasticity' people were rightly up in arms. The only mitigating point you could make in his defence is that in America the relationship between 'spaz' and 'spastic' has been eroded, so it doesn't carry the same weight.

It would be difficult to mount a similar defence of Sebastien Bernier's side-scrolling shooter Spasticity – or indeed of Apple, which approved the game for sale.

Of course, we're inconsistent in the degree of taboo we attach to the use of different clinical disorders to describe everyday things. Nobody would bat an eyelid if the game were called 'Insanity' or 'Mania', and it's perfectly acceptable to say that a shock nearly gave you a 'heart attack'.

But 'spastic' is absolutely off-limits. In fact, it came second in a BBC disability website's poll of the ten worst words, behind 'retard'.

Given that Apple is more often accused of puritanism than profanity (in the last few weeks the approvals team has made headlines by rejecting art-themed find 'em up Filth Fair and Unpleasant Horse, from PopCap spin-off 4th & Battery) it's probably a matter of time before Spasticity gets, at the very least, a name change.