expatoz, on 19 Mar 2014 - 18:26, said:

it is petrol because it comes out of a petrol bowser

sold at a petrol station and delivered by a petrol tanker and is derived from petroleum (yes, look it up). Also let us not forget, when you need lube we can use petroleum jelly...not gasoleneum jelly.

Why do they use the word benzene when they're talking about petrol (gasoline to Americans)? It's a completely different thing.

Basically, in a nutshell, because benzene is added to gas or petrol to increase the octane rating, on the side of pumps they have written benzene 91 or 95 etc the RON if you like so the article writer has just used what he's used to.

In thailand petrol or gas is thus colloquially known as benzene, one could argue why Americans use the name gas as gas and petrol are also two different things in the same respect. It's more a colloquialism than a homophone as people have suggested, a homophone is a word that sounds the same as another word but is spelled differently, right, write, to, two, too etc.

Gasohol is a word commonly used or just ohol for short to refer to gas or petrol which has had alcohol added to it to lower it's price, these come in two grades 91 and 95 which is the benzene content or RON also

To add, they refer to petrol with alcohol added as gasohol which is a play on words with gas and alcohol, petrohol was not as catchy, I guess

Ohhhh Lord Jesus, they are arguing about benzene and gasoline now.

When will it end?

But back to the article, waste of petrol, gas, benzine, diesel or whatever but good job nobody died 20,000 litres at 39 baht a litre is close to a million baht right? I guess that driver is going to lose his job.

Lots of inconvenience for traffic though