The popular online dictionary Ninjawords is available for the iPhone and iPod touch, but with a major limitation compared to its Web-based counterpart: It doesn't include all off the words. The limitation is intentional thanks to Apple's insistence that the application not include words the company deemed objectionable, according to Daring Fireball.

In addition to blocking the words that upset the iPhone app review team, Apple also insisted that the dictionary carry a 17+ rating.

The list of words Apple insisted had to go includes several that wouldn't make it past prime time TV censors, along with more that are used in regular conversation but also have other meanings such as screw, snatch, pussy, ass and cock. Ass and cock, for example, appear in the King James bible, and every Macintosh and iPhone includes more than one screw.

The popular f-bomb -- a word that can earn a movie a "PG-13" or "R" rating -- is blocked, too, but appears in Apple's own Dictionary application on the Mac with 19 entries. Apple taps into the New Oxford American Dictionary for its own application, and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary has at least six entries relating to the same word.

While Apple has been busy scrubbing words out of Ninjawords, other online dictionary sellers haven't been. Amazon is currently selling print and Kindle versions of dictionaries without restricting the words they can list, Borders sells unedited dictionaries online and in its stores, and even Walmart sells complete dictionaries in its retail locations as well as online.

While Apple's iPhone app reviewers are most likely simply trying to follow the guidelines handed down to them, the handling of the Ninjawords application looks to be another example of the company's current inability to efficiently deal with the number of submission along with how to manage content that may -- or may not be -- inappropriate.

Ninjawords is priced at US$1.99 and is available at Apple's iTunes-based App Store -- no discount for missing words.