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Comment by irishcoffee

17 hours ago

FWIW, I believe petroleum is a synonym for crude oil. If you put it in your cars fuel tank, you'll have a bad time. Gasoline is made from petrolium.

I'm pretty sure petrol means gasoline not petroleum.

  • Petrol is technically just short for petroleum, which is latin for "rock oil"

    Gasoline is from gas + plus the chemical suffix "ol" short for the latin "oleum", and "ine" meaning "made of".

    • But the etymology of a word doesn't prove that someone is using that word wrong, or people on both sides of the pond would have to start baking our biscuits a second time.

petrol !== petroleum

the confusion is solely in your reading comprehension skills and not in the GP's use of the words