

America's suburbs: An age of transformation - cubix
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?source=hptextfeature&story_id=11449846

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natrius
It was jarring when the informative article suddenly called the views of some
"nonsense".

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georgecmu
It's amusing that Economist's authors confuse 'homogenous' with 'homogeneous'
and editors don't catch the mistake.

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gojomo
'Homogenous' is a synonym for 'homogeneous'.

See: <http://www.answers.com/homogenous> and
<http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/homogenous>

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georgecmu
Not according to OED (see
[http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50107551?single=1&qu...](http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50107551?single=1&query_type=word&queryword=homogenous&first=1&max_to_show=10)):

Article for homogenous only has two meanings listed: 1\. Biol. = HOMOGENETIC
1. 2\. Surg. Of transplanted tisssue: = HOMOPLASTIC a. 2.

I suppose the confusion in everyday speech made it into American dictionaries,
but I still find its appearance in a magazine perceived to cater to
intellectual snobs amusing.

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jmilton
While the OED may be considered the definitive source for the vast majority of
words, many entries reflect the last print publication in 1989, and are not as
in-step with modern usages. Language is continually evolving, and as always,
it is best to consult a variety of sources.

~~~
georgecmu
I prefer "changing" to "evolving" to describe this phenomenon. It is certainly
interesting to observe two unrelated words with similar spelling become
synonyms in less than 20 years.

