burton@inuxe.UUCP (08/09/83)
A co-worker and I had an argument the other day about the pronunciation of 'homogeneous'. This lead to an interesting discovery: there are actually two spellings of the word -- homogeneous and homogenous. In his dictionary at least, they are given separate entries and slightly different definitions, but are also listed as synonyms for each other. We then went further, and tried to think of other -genous or -geneous words, but at the time could only think of heterogeneous and heterogenous. These are also listed in the dictionary with separate entries, slightly different definitions, and as synonyms of each other. Can anyone clarify the matter for me? Can all -genous words also be spelled and pronounced -geneous? What is the difference in their definitions, or possibly their use? To say the least I am intrigued by this discovery. Doug Burton inuxe!burton ATTCP-IN