Homophonally Yours

Dear Gap,

As someone who works with words for a living and who expends a fair amount of effort in achieving correctness in spelling, grammar, and punctuation, I feel compelled to bring this error to your attention.

This item on your web site is described as a "buffalo yolk puffer jacket." By "buffalo" I assume you are referring to the buffalo plaid that's crawled back from the dead along with all the other 80's fashion cues and is everywhere this season. I can also handle "puffer," although I think it's a stupid term to describe a jacket.

It's "yolk" that has me confused. Even if buffalo could lay eggs, I don't see how they could have anything to do with this piece of outerwear. I mean, they'd spoil, right? Perhaps you meant "yoke," referring to that area across the shoulders where the buffalo plaid has been placed? Oops, how embarrassing.

Or maybe not: if this sort of mistake made it past your production staff and onto your web site, then maybe the majority of your customers are just as poorly educated and won't ever notice. Kids these days just don't know how to spell anymore, but who cares? They can still aspire to get jobs writing product copy or doing web production for the Gap.

Your intrepid blogger,
Some Assembly Required

P.S. If you decide you want to hire someone who can do this sort of thing correctly, get in touch. But I don't work cheap.