I brought this up with my Japanese friend. He told me there are so many homophones in the language people are desensitised to stuff like this. For example: シ (shi) can mean both 四 (four) and 死 (death).

You’re not wrong, but your choice of examples isn’t great. Four is actually associated with death because it sounds like death, four is unlucky[4]. There is also an alternative pronunciation for “four”, よん。

[4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraphobia

Or you can recall the snickering when the iPad was introduced. Didn't seem to have negatively affected it.