When did American's start calling petroleum "Gas"?

Question

And does this cause any confusion, since it's clearly a liquid fuel? And is petroleum and gasoline really the same?

Answer 1

its been called gas since I was born (i'm 25) and much farther back than that.

gas is short for gasoline... i've never found anyone that was confused, but I guess it could happen.

gasoline is a product produced with petroleum.  so, technically, americans are more correct with their term gasoline... because petroleum has to be processed before it becomes gasoline.

Answer 2

GAS is short for gasoline.

Now that some cars are going natural gas (propane) yes it is getting confusing.  

I was at the auto parts store and the store clerk look up a customer's car.  Then he started going down the list of engine options and one of them was "natural gas".  The customer not understanding said "yeah I just use gas".  And the store clerk just accepted that.

Of course I had to stop both and ask the customer - do you mean propane or gasoline?  Sure enough the customer said "gasoline"?

Good Luck...

Answer 3

petroleum is the crude product.

Petrol (gasoline) is one of many products produced in the refinery process of the crude.

The shorting of the word is a good explanation.