Re: CHAT: Southern word

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