Bug#816599: lintian: false-positive spelling error 'homogenous'
Package: lintian
Version: 2.5.41
Severity: normal
Dear Maintainer,
In one of my packages, lintian reported a spelling error 'homogenous' which
should be fixed to 'homogeneous'.
Not being a native English speaker, I trusted lintian, created a patch and
submitted it upstream, only to get a reply:
> My dictionary (American Heritage) says 'homogenous' is an acceptable spelling
> of 'homogeneous', and it's how I pronounce the word.
So I did a quick check, and Merriam-Webster [1] seems to allow the 'homogenous'
spelling as well.
Other sources [2] even suggest that 'homogenous' is the de-facto spelling of the
word, while the Online Etymology Dictionary - which according to [3] suggested
that this is an 'erroneous spelling of "homogeneous"' - claims in it's current
edition [4] that it is 'a spelling of "homogeneous" that represents a common
pronunciation' (thus accepting the spelling).
I would therefore suggest to consider 'homogenous' to be a false positive and
drop it from the lintian database.
[1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/homogenous
[2] http://grammarist.com/usage/homogenous-homogeneous/
[3] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/homogenous
[4] http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=homogenous
-- System Information:
Debian Release: stretch/sid
APT prefers testing-updates
APT policy: (500, 'testing-updates'), (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386
Kernel: Linux 4.3.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=de_AT.utf8, LC_CTYPE=de_AT.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
Versions of packages lintian depends on:
ii binutils 2.26-5
ii bzip2 1.0.6-8
ii diffstat 1.61-1
ii file 1:5.25-2
ii gettext 0.19.7-2
ii hardening-includes 2.8+nmu2
ii intltool-debian 0.35.0+20060710.4
ii libapt-pkg-perl 0.1.29+b5
ii libarchive-zip-perl 1.56-2
ii libclass-accessor-perl 0.34-1
ii libclone-perl 0.38-1+b1
ii libdpkg-perl 1.18.4
ii libemail-valid-perl 1.198-1
ii libfile-basedir-perl 0.07-1
ii libipc-run-perl 0.94-1
ii liblist-moreutils-perl 0.413-1+b1
ii libparse-debianchangelog-perl 1.2.0-8
ii libperl5.22 [libdigest-sha-perl] 5.22.1-8
ii libtext-levenshtein-perl 0.13-1
ii libtimedate-perl 2.3000-2
ii liburi-perl 1.71-1
ii libyaml-libyaml-perl 0.41-6+b1
ii man-db 2.7.5-1
ii patchutils 0.3.4-1
ii perl 5.22.1-8
ii t1utils 1.39-2
ii xz-utils 5.1.1alpha+20120614-2.1
Versions of packages lintian recommends:
ii dpkg 1.18.4
ii libperlio-gzip-perl 0.19-1+b1
ii perl 5.22.1-8
ii perl-modules-5.22 [libautodie-perl] 5.22.1-8
Versions of packages lintian suggests:
pn binutils-multiarch <none>
ii dpkg-dev 1.18.4
ii libhtml-parser-perl 3.72-1
ii libtext-template-perl 1.46-1
-- no debconf information
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