Dang Homophones!

Seems a misunderstanding about homophones (those words that are pronounced the same but spelled differently, as you will recall from between snickers in your grade-school English classes) got Apple in a bit of hot water among the online tech community. An article in The Chicago Tribune about iPods breaking included the following paragraph:

An Apple spokeswoman, Natalie Kerris, said iPods have a failure rate of less than 5 percent, which she said is "fairly low" compared with other consumer electronics. "The vast majority of our customers are extremely happy with their iPods," she said, adding that an iPod is designed to last four years.

After the bruhaha began, Ms. Kerris pointed out that what she had in fact said was an iPod is designed to last "for years." What a difference a U makes.