Mucha Calor

When I listened to the lesson about weather (3.3 I think) I noticed that Mauricio and Amy both were saying "mucha calor" which struck me as odd because I thought I remembered it as "mucho calor" in the "Behind the Wheel" lessons. I looked in the written lessons and they show "mucho calor". I decided "mucho calor" must be right and continued with the other lessons. But, it kept bothering me and I kept wondering why they had been saying "mucha", so I looked it up in my dictionary and it say: "calor masculino [use of the feminine gender, although common in some areas is generally considered to be archaic or non-standard]". I thought this was fascinating. Apparently either one may be right depending where you are (or are from). And, I assume that Mauricio must be from one of the areas where it is common to use the feminine form (please correct me if I'm wrong). Now I am wondering if there are other words for which the gender may vary according to where one is (or is from)? And is there a pattern to which countries use masuline and which use feminine, or is it random? thanks, Jake

Hello, My Puerto Rican girlfriend and her friends say "mucho calor" regardless of gender. I don't know about other dialects. Greg