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Re: CHAT: Southern word

From:John Cowan <cowan@...>
Date:Sunday, March 26, 2000, 1:16
FFlores scripsit:

> >UNLADDA (adjective). A grade of gasoline. > >Usage: "I'm gonna fill up my new truck with unladda." > > I usually guess the meaning with help of the usage > example, but this one beats me. :)
"Unleaded", specifically, lacking in tetraethyl lead, an additive mixed with gasoline for many years, but now banned in the U.S. because it added to the risk of lead poisoning. For a while the two were sold side by side (from different gas pumps), and you still hear people asking for "unleaded" gasoline, although it is now all unleaded. Tetraethyl lead would also damge the catalytic converter, so cars that had one (all of them, by now) are made with smaller gas intake pipes which the standard nozzle of a gas pump would not fit into. Pumps delivering unleaded gas have a smaller nozzle, of course. -- John Cowan cowan@ccil.org I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin