The "neutral" is a "grounded conductor", meaning it is carrying current back to the ground (midpoint of a 240 single or 3 phase "Y") connected service. The "ground wire" does NOT carry current except in the event of a fault. In other words, if you disconnect the "neutral" in a live circuit, you can get one helluva shock if you become the ground path, because it now becomes "hot".
A generator may or may not have the "ground" and "neutral" tied together. By code, that "tie" needs to be at the service disconnecting means, and kept separate at all other points in the system, simply because there is the POTENTIAL for a difference in voltage between any given "neutral" and "ground" that could kill you.
Back feeding a generator to a welder plug, unless just a couple feet from the main panel disconnect, violates the ground/neutral safety, to say nothing of the other safety issues involved.
As another side note, if you don't ground the frame of your generator and tie the generator neutral to ground, you technically have a "floating" system in which either hot leg or neutral can be tied to ground, but only one at a time. Such a system is inherently safe as long as you only contact one conductor at a time. Worked on a 480 system at a gravel pit that was fully floating - that was interesting.
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