this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2025
204 points (94.7% liked)

Map Enthusiasts

4871 readers
238 users here now

For the map enthused!

Rules:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old

Um excuse me but Koreans call it 휘발유 which means 揮發油 which means Volatile Oil.

who the fuck called that la gasolina?

[–] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 68 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Naphtha and benzene are actually different chemicals, though...

Yea yea I know they're all hydrocarbons but it's still funny.

[–] Successful_Try543@feddit.org 35 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

AfaIk, Naphta is just a relatively light fraction of crude oil, i.e. a mixture of different chemicals, not gaseous, but partly volatile.

In Germany, fuel (Ottokraftstoff) is called Benzin, and was originally a mixture of 60 % Benzin (Naphta, alkanes and cyclic alkanes) and 40 % Benzene (Benzol).

[–] pirat@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] Successful_Try543@feddit.org 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Nikolaus Otto was the inventor of the four-stroke internal combustion engine.

[–] tiredofsametab@fedia.io 31 points 1 week ago

Benzene and Benzine are not the same thing. I don't like what the creator did here.

[–] TabbsTheBat@pawb.social 21 points 1 week ago (2 children)

In my country nafta is crude oil, and benzinas is gasoline, which afaik neither is actually "correct"

[–] edwardbear@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

We call diesel fuel “naphtha” and gasoline is benzene.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] ggtdbz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 week ago

Huh. That’s how it kind of is in Arabic.

I never put it together that what we call “Naft/Nuft” (نَفط) is related to Naphtha. Fuel is “Benzeen” (بنزين).

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] crt0o@discuss.tchncs.de 29 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Essence sounds so fucking cool, like some offering to appease the machine gods

[–] glowing_hans@sopuli.xyz 2 points 5 days ago

Yeah essence sounds magical. Smh fits french.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Blackout@fedia.io 26 points 1 week ago (2 children)

China is a pretty big country to just skip like this lol. They call it Qiyou

[–] smeg@feddit.uk 12 points 1 week ago

I guess they just skipped countries that have a unique name for it

[–] lime@feddit.nu 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)
[–] TimewornTraveler@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

揮發油 if same as Korea. qiyou sounds like air oil though. 유 油 is oil, qi I don't have handy to write it but it's a very simple character.

[–] Blackout@fedia.io 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Liters. Last time I was there it was under $1/liter

[–] lime@feddit.nu 26 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] Blackout@fedia.io 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It translates to steam oil

[–] lime@feddit.nu 17 points 1 week ago (4 children)

i see! thanks. so it's basically the same word as gas-oline then?

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] gigachad@sh.itjust.works 25 points 1 week ago (4 children)

A gas is not a liquid, change my mind

[–] saltesc@lemmy.world 46 points 1 week ago (6 children)
[–] tal 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitute_natural_gas

Substitute natural gas (SNG), or synthetic natural gas, is a fuel gas (predominantly methane, CH4) that can be produced from fossil fuels such as lignite coal, oil shale, or from biofuels (when it is named bio-SNG) or using electricity with power-to-gas systems.

So we've got "gas" in the US (short for "gasoline"), which is a liquid. There's liquified petroleum gas (LPG), which is also a liquid. And there's synthetic natural gas.

EDIT: Bonus: my understanding is that in Germany, an unqualified "gas" tends to refer to natural gas, which Germany is presently importing in liquid form (liquified natural gas, or LNG).

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 week ago

I have never filled my car's tank with "a gas," I fill it with gas, which is short for gasoline. That abbreviation being a homonym for gas, a chemical phase, is merely an unfortunate coincidence.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Ulvain@sh.itjust.works 23 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Pretty big miss to not include Quebec in the "essence" category, or at least to do a striped pattern

yeah it's like OP never played Milles Bornes wtf

how do you think OP deals with Creve!

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 19 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I suddenly understand the name of the gas station “Esso”.

[–] Presently42@lemmy.ca 31 points 1 week ago

S O: Standard Oil

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] reallykindasorta@slrpnk.net 23 points 1 week ago

I like “essence”

[–] Klear@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago
[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I believe they call it guzzoline in Australia.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Drusas@fedia.io 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Calling it "essence" is fucking weird.

[–] Hudell@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 1 week ago

Still better than calling it "Others". How does that even work?

[–] bitwolf@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 week ago

mmmMMMmmm, Essense, yessss

[–] zod000@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 week ago

Give me a full tank of Others please!

[–] Grian@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Algerian here, the most common word used to talk about "gas" here is actually the french word essence, since darja(what people actually speak) is just a weird amalgamate of french, Arabic and Berber that really don't get along well.

I know this Map just took the official languages, so I don't wanna call it inacuratd, but just wanted to point this out.

[–] TimewornTraveler@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

wow I've never heard of a language like that in Algeria. I always assumed you all spoke a dialect of Arabic and some French.

Darja?? I'm gonna be reading about this for the next hour. merci!

[–] Grian@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago

Darja is technically a dialect, even if (at least from my experience) it is barely intelligible to most people from saudi Arabia and such, I often end up speaking English in such cases.

Darja is sorta like Scots in that way tbh, basically a sister language / dialect of Arabic in a similar way to what Scots is for English.

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Not gonna lie, that’s an odd choice of name from China.

[–] tal 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1lf63hv/whats_gasoline_called_in_each_asian_countries/

It sounds like it's not entirely consistent across China and the translation is somewhat-debatable, but a translation for China might be "gas-oil", "stone-oil", or "steam-oil".

[–] Meron35@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

汽油 (gas, as in state of matter + oil) refers to petrol/gasoline, the kind you put in cars.

石油 (stone oil) is refers to oil, as in the natural resource (such as crude).

原油 (origin oil) refers specifically to crude oil.

柴油 (kindling oil) refers to diesel.

加油 (add oil) is used to mean refilling the car with petrol.

And finally, 机油 (motor oil) is engine oil.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 week ago

Spain has many languages, in Catalan is benzene and I think in Aragonese is the same.

[–] viking@infosec.pub 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

In China it's 汽油 which basically means "gas oil". It's a verbatim translation of gasoline.

[–] migriffin@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 week ago

while in Taiwan it's 石油, which basically means "rock/petr oil", verbatim translation of petrol

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] msage@programming.dev 7 points 1 week ago

In Czech Repulic, Nafta is diesel.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 6 points 1 week ago

Essence of "go."

[–] OrteilGenou@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Why is Greenland grey? It's the same as Denmark

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›