If unleaded gasoline is the norm, why do we need to specify it at the gas station? I don’t think there’s even an option to buy leaded. Even if there was, why not have unleaded just be called gasoline and leaded be called leaded gasoline?
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Do you need to specify unleaded? Because I don’t.
There used to be a regular and unleaded. The regular had lead in it. Cars that used regular could not run on unleaded and vice versa.
When you went to the pump, you had to pick regular or unleaded. Then they phased out regular, but there were still cars that needed lead. So, there was an additive you could buy in a little bottle, when you filled your tank with unleaded, you then poured in the additive from the little bottle.
So, now there isn’t regular anymore, but we still call the other one unleaded. Originally we called leaded gasoline regular, because it was the norm, but then regular became a name instead of a description.
it used to contain lead, which was better for performance but had terrible health effects. Now they always specify “unleaded” kind of like how coke is always “coca-cola classic” even though no one remembers new coke any more
No one wants to be the first one to stop saying unleaded, because that implies it has lead in it.
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