>>This is plain wrong. Light and lite are becoming two words. "Light" is a visual characteristic, as in "turn on the lights", while "lite" is a marketing ploy to sell "thinner" as "beter", as in "European Budweiser is light, American is lite".
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>FWIW, I think "lite" can into use because it's hard to trademark words in common usage. That's why so many products have names that are misspellings of common words.

That's the cause, and the consequence is that some of these misspelled words take on a life of their own. I am specially sensitive to the difference between the beer :).

p.s. And no, not "between the beers" - the usage of "difference between "+singular comes from an old out-of-joint joke from back home:

Q: What is the difference between a parrot?

A: It has two legs, specially the left one.

From there, another one derives:

Q: What is the difference between a college student?

A: Drinks better than he pays.