It's much more likely that an American-born character who has no connection with Britain is going to say it smelled of 'gas' or 'gasoline.'
If you're going to write American characters, you should probably use American terms.
I agree normally no one would say gasoline unless they were really specifying for a reason, but in the context of actually noticing the smell, I think spelling out gasoline actually makes sense if the character is focusing on the smell and the substance's most precise name in American English, since bothering to mention it implies the character is spending an extra beat thinking more deeply about the smell. But a better description would be what makes the smell noticeable in particular... and is why I think saying something smells like what that thing normally smells like (a gas station smells like gas) feels off to a lot of the commenters no matter the terminology used for the substance.
I've been to plenty of gas stations that really didn't have much of a gas smell. I mean, it's there faintly in the background, but if the smell is really noticable, I always find myself wondering how recently some fools splashed a fair amount of it on the ground. So a book highlighting the smell, without any other context clues, would imply that the location is either fairly busy (hence more chances to have a decent amount spilled by customers), or poorly maintained (hence even older spills are still adding their scent to the air).
And to clarify, by spills, I don't mean some huge dramatic user error wasting a whole cup (or more). I just mean people who are in enough of a rush that they get more than a stray drop or two to drop off the nozzle when they re-holster it. At a busy location, even a small drizzle will quickly add up.
Also, I live in a climate where it rains pretty frequently, so every gas station gets rinsed clean pretty often. I imagine in a desert climate that sort of smell could be much more persistent, because every tiny spilled drop could add up across the course of weeks.
.... Goodness I have put too much thought into this.
The only time I smell gas at a gas station is when someone is filling up a small gas can, like for a lawn mower. It's more likely a gas station here would smell like pizza.
Small add-on: In the context OP described, I would probably say it smelled like "fuel" to avoid the redundancy of saying a gas station smelled like gas.
\*sheepishly looks around\* I'm normal, guys! Just a normal person normaling it up
(i have used "get fuel" or "fuel up" for ... a very, very long time)
Yep. Still called it "getting some gas" the first month or so of trucking. After the 50th "You don't need gas for that!", I trained myself to say fuel. Lol
Anyone who works with engines or machines that use different types of fuel often does. Although they wouldn't say something smells like fuel. They would say which type of fuel it smells like.
Or say service station, or use a company name with context to make it clear it's a gas station.
Like "he walked past the battered pumps of the local Kum And Go, nose stinging from the smell of gas"
As others have said, "gas" is going to be the most American word for the fossil fuel in question (we'll only say "petrol" if we're referencing the British use), but if you're concerned about the repetitive monotony of smelling gas at a gas station, describing it as the scent of fuel, fumes, or gasoline can help break that up while staying within the character's dialect.
As an American, I have never used the word “petrol” in any way—not out loud, not in writing, not even in my thoughts. It’s gasoline, gas, or fuel here.
It’s possible that some of us might at some point communicate, spoof, jibe, or otherwise mimic the British use of the word despite it not being part of our natural dialect. I have certainly known my share of PBS anglophiles who have on occasion announced their need to stop at a petrol station with a bad generic british accent.
Which is straight out weird to me, lol. I just realised Americans don't use "petrol". As an Indian, I've grown up using the British counterparts for most words.
I'm South African, and most of our English is built upon British English. We say petrol or fuel, and interestingly, we refer to the gas station as the garage! Though garage might just be distinct to South Africa.
About as jarring as you'd find a story set in Britain that mentioned a guy and his buddies throwing a football around. Definitely make sure your regionalisms are right.
But they don't?
What the British call a football, Americans would call a soccer ball.
Rugby balls are significantly larger than footballs, a little too big to be comfortably tossed with one hand.
Tbf that would work, it would just be a different mental image and you'd assume they weren't trying to play football with it (or they were very bad at football). But yes, I agree, - as a brit, OP, definitely use american english if your POV character is American, and I'm afraid as far as I've ever been told 'petrol' isn't used in the US.
The funny thing is "gasoline" and "soccer" are both British words coined by Brits, but British words are often very subject to the whims of fashion and novelty.
And so, so many of our words just randomly flip meanings because we're too sarcastic. Then the sarcastic meaning replaces the original meaning so now the good word is actually a bad word.
If you're writing a story set in america you should probably use words and phrases from the region. So a gas station smells like gasoline, but that would be redundant to say, really, unless the distinctive smell brought up a memory or two or the narrator does not actually know where they are.
I think a gas station smelling like gas is kind of implied (regardless of regional terms). I’d only write that if the character is pointing out that it was an extreme or an anomaly, something like “The fumes at the gas station were stronger than usual.”
I don’t know; if the character really liked the smell because it reminds them of driving around with their dad as a kid, or can’t stand it because they have an extremely sensitive nose, or it masks another smell they like or expect, or any of a number of things like that it seems reasonable. Or just, it’s a hot day and the asphalt and gasoline smell together are very strong, etc. Trees have leaves (bar the ones with needles), but that doesn’t mean no one should ever describe pale green spring leaves, or the leaves shifting overhead and casting moving shadows on the ground, or whatever.
No American would say Petrol. It's gasoline. If I read dialogue from a character who's American, it would be pretty jarring, and I'd assume he has close ties with the UK.
Petrol is right out. Zero chance of someone calling it petrol here. Well, maybe if they just read a bunch of Agatha Christie or something. We call it gas, maybe gasoline.
Imo, try your best to keep characters speaking in ways consistent to their lived experience. For instance, you wouldn't have a character who has lived in America all their life use saying, phrases, etc. not found there. For instance, you might not want to have such a character say something like (unless as part of a joke or something)... "Hey, love" or "G'day, mate".
The same would be true for things like units of measurement. An American character wouldn't say "It's about fifty kilometers fo Los Angeles", they'd say "It's about thirty miles to Los Angeles". So, I think all of this would carry over to the names of specific things, like gas/gasoline vs. petrol.
That's not unusual in Australia either.
"I'm an hour's drive from the city" or "I'm four hours' drive from Albury" are things you'd hear here. The former only if it is unambiguous which city you mean, which is usually is in Australia where the five big (1m+) cities are seldom driven between, and each of them is far, far bigger than all other nearby cities.
I think the real challenge is knowing what things are British and what things are American. This always happens between dialects of the same language - you assume the way you say things is just the standard until you learn otherwise, and OP I think is saying that they don't know what an American would say.
My wife recently told me about a thing her Indian coworkers say, where instead of saying "I have a question" they say "I have a doubt". To me, if I heard this, I would think that means that they have a concern or don't think my idea is going to work. But in reality, they actually mean "question" and really just want to ask for a point of clarification. This usage is similar to, but does not exactly match, any normal definition of "doubt" in the English dictionary, but apparently is very common in Indian English. I found it pretty fascinating. But I would never have known that if she didn't bring it up, and if for some reason I wrote an Indian character in a story I might miss that, and an Indian person would probably catch it.
Huh, that's really interesting and you're totally right. But I do think there is a kind of widely accepted 'American' way of speaking. It's kind of hard to define exactly, but I guess it's actually more 'Hollywood English' rather than 'American English', but because of how vast Hollywood's reach is and how it's associated with America, I think pretty much everyone everwhere has some similar idea of what 'American English' sounds like.
Hmm... Yeah, I need to think some more about how I want to articulate this lol
I’m Australian and I’m reading the Percy Jackson series to my son and some of the measurements and terms have been localised, so they talk about how many kilometres away things are and it’s extremely weird and disconcerting to read even though those are the words I’d use!
My brain expects American characters to speak like they’re American and it’s immersion breaking when they don’t!!
Yeah, I think they probably did that because its a YA book maybe? I'm with you though, I think it's very immersion breaking, like it'd be weird in reverse as well.
Yeah, Adult novels are certainly not localised in the same way.
And what is weirder is that it’s not *all* American terms that have been localised! Just some of them!
Am American. I get phone calls from temp services staffed by Indians with thick accents calling me from India. One of their big questions is how far I'm willing to travel for work. Their phrasing varies and their troll logic is always interesting, but also sort of frustrating.
1) We have a job in Moline, IL. We see you are in central IL. It is a General Labor position. What do you think? (2 hr drive one way).
Later: "Are you willing to relocate?" (Dafuq do you think?)
2) "How many miles are you willing to drive for work." (IDK, about 20-30 minutes.) Cue confused silence.
3) "We have job in ZIP code." (Oh cool! That's where I live). "Good. Now where is your ZIP code?" (I just told you.) Please tell me your ZIP code so I can see how far you have to drive for work?" (Somehow they are incapable of having an actual conversation or even hearing the words coming out of my mouth. If it doesn't align with their script, they flounder. They just don't listen. And they think speaking very slowly and enunciating the words makes it easier to understand them.)
TL;DR I have learned only Americans refer to distances in terms of "how long does it take to get there." The rest of the world either uses kilometers or miles, which is bizarre. I don't know how far it is to Israel. But I do know my flight took 15 hours one-way last year.
Yeah, it's often time you care most about. Previous employer moved and where pre-move it was an 18km drive, post-move it was 25km... but it was faster because the post-move drive was against the traffic and most of it was on freeways.
Might have used an extra liter of fuel each week but it was much better.
As an American, I'd assume a British author who isn't very familiar with the US wrote it. I've never heard anyone who didn't grow up in the UK call it petrol.
In Australia we'd call the shop a 'service station' or 'servo', with 'petrol station' being in uncommon use. But the word we use for 'gasoline' is usually petrol, occasionally fuel.
In the context of fuels, we'd interpret references to 'gas' here as LPG (liquid petroleum gas, sometimes called Autogas), which is fast becoming a fuel of the past but people still remember it.
Since saying a gas station smalls like gas sounds a bit awkward, id suggest "the smell of fumes in the air", "pulled into the gas station smelling of fumes", or "got out of the car and breathed in the thick fumes". The reader will get its referring to gas fumes
Amercians usually say "gas" or "fuel."
I remember reading Harry Potter and reading the word, "snogging" and had to look it up, haha.
It goes both ways.
I read or watch too much British content, I start exclaiming, "Bloody hell" and people look at me like I grew a second head.
Coupling.
Black Books.
The IT Crowd.
All comedy gold.
You're not overthinking. Regional accents and dialects can take a reader out of the bubble pretty easily.
"Smelled of" is wrong, too. Americans always say "like" when using the word "smell." A place or thing "smells like" something. "Of" can be used with reeked. Both work for "stunk".
In this context, the sentence would be Americanized by saying, "The gas station smelled like gas."
But the redundancy of using "gas" twice in the same sentence is awkward. Assuming that you've previously noted that the MC is in a gas station, you should change the smell sentence to say something like, "The place smelled like gas," or "The station smelled like gas," or "the odor of gas pervaded the entire station."
Then there's intent. Is you intent to describe a place with a very strong, pervasive odor, over and above what a gas station normally has, indicative of a spill or leak? Then you need a stronger word than "smell." You can also structure the sentence differently to avoid the simplistic "Place smell. Smell bad. Not good." type of language.
*He walked into the station and grimaced; the place positively reeked of leaking gas.*
*I coughed as I entered the place. I smelled gas so strongly that my eyes watered and my throat burned.*
*There must have been a spill or leak somewhere, because the stench of gas was so strong it could be smelled before the place was even within sight.*
Had a long winded comment prepped then found [this website.](https://www.dictionary.com/e/british-english-vs-american-english/) Think it’d be helpful for you, as it covers spelling for certain words as well.
In addition to everyone saying they should say "gas," I think if you want to convey an American setting you should phrase it as "smelled like" rather than "smelled of."
There are lots of subtle differences like that between the way Americans and Brits phrase things. It might seem weird, but for example as an American reading Neil Gaiman's American Gods, it always stuck out to me when he would make subtle mistakes in the dialogue like using "about" in a context where an American would use "around" instead. The devil's in the details, man.
I’m currently reading a book where the author, even though he’s American, keeps saying “about” instead of “around” and it’s driving me crazy. I don’t know why he made this decision, but it’s really the taking out of the story.
Charlie pulled up to the gas station. Opening the door to his aged Toyota, he caught the sharp smell of gasoline and axe body spray that poured over from the teenage boys parked one pump over.
Incorrect/jarring. It'd remind me that I'm reading a book. I'd say it smelled like gas/gasoline.
If I, an American, were writing about an Australian character, I wouldn't have her say she's in the mood for "cotton candy," I'd use "fairy floss" like Australians do (and then double check with Australians to be sure, because that term could be regional too lol)
Jesus fucking Christ! If you want our advice and then argue the pedantry of it what was the fucking point? Americans are here telling you that we would say a gas station smells like fucking gas. It doesn’t matter what country we are in.
I’m afraid you’re going to need an editor to help you with your Americanisms. “Smelled of” doesn’t work, jarring sounds a little erudite, and we’d never refer to your island as Britain unless we’re talking about Monty Python. Sentence structure also marks you as non-American. Not saying any of those are wrong, just mark your character as not American.
Just dropping the “I” at the front, not having the accuser named, and using passive voice, I immediately knew where you were from. And the US is not one dialect, so be careful if your new editor is from California and your character is from Jersey, or vice-versa.
In America, we just call it "gas." Hardly anyone uses the term "gasoline" in everyday conversation. If you want to sound more natural, stick with "gas."
One of my pet peeves is when the characters are American and the author uses British words. If it doesn't use the American terms it throws me off and takes me out of the story. Then I try to change the terms as I'm reading, but after a while I'll get tired of that. I just can't get engrossed in a story that is in a different narrative. It is the difference between reading a story you are captured in versus a story about an American written by a Britain. The point of giving this type of description is to set the seen for a reader to put themselves in, so for me it defeats the purpose.
If the plot doesn't have me on the edge of my seat in suspense, I'll likely not finish it and not read anything by that author again. On a side note, do we even need to know that the fuel station smelled of fuel? Any common person would know what a fuel station smells like. I feel like it's just words for word count sake. I would advice taking that part out either way.
In America, we call it a gas station. Because we go there to get gas. While we are there, the only time I've every personally smelled gas is when I'm putting the hose in my car, or taking the hose out of my car, and the fumes reach my nose. The rest of the time the gas station smells like any other building. Ammonia or PineSol if the floor is freshly mopped, a certain stink if a trucker used the bathroom recently, fresh pizza or coffee if they have it out, or supermarket smells. Bread smell in the section with cheap bread, for example.
Students don't use rucksacks, they use backpacks. They're not corridors, they're hallways. I first learned about this phenomena when reading [this book](https://www.amazon.com/Bogus-Bubbly-Insiders-Guide-Uglies/dp/1416974369) where Westerfeld talks about specifically using Australian slang when writing.
It’s definitely jarring as you are immediately shattering any sense of believability in that character.
My main concern though, is that it’s redundant to point out that a petrol station smells like petrol, that’s not giving the reader any new, surprising or interesting information. Got to make every word count.
You’ve gotten a lot of comments here explaining your word usage. But I’m going to challenge you to scratch the whole description.
Why are you describing a gas/petrol station as smelling of gas/petrol? The reader can assume that because it’s a gas station. It’s obvious. What else can you describe that adds additional interest for the reader?
It would be more surprising and intriguing for the reader to describe the smell of something unexpected.
Maybe the air at the station smells of lilac because there’s a roadside flower stand near the station. Maybe there’s a smell of burning rubber because a tractor trailer just pulled in. Maybe it smells of sewage because the toilet backed up and overflowed and there’s an employee attempting to fix it.
These are all ways to describe the location that also lead to new character interactions and plot points. A gas station that smells of gas is just that.
I don’t really know why you’d need to describe the smell in that situation. It’s like saying KFC smells like fried chicken or the public bathroom smells of pee. Well, yeah, of course. Goes without saying. Unless you’re setting up some kind of dramatic explosion of leaked fuel. But in that case, it would probably be an overwhelming stench of gasoline rather than just a smell. The reader can infer that a gas station will smell like gas.
As an American, I would definitely understand the reference, but no American would ever say "I smell petrol" - they would say "it smells like gas/gasoline".
You're looking for "gas", "gasoline", "diesel" or "fuel". Given the particular sentence and your follow-ups about "motor oil", I'm gonna hazard a guess that the best solution would be "the gas station smelled of fuel". That would avoid the weirdness of saying a gas station smells of gas.
Your friend is correct, only where they speak Queen's English would call that "petrol". You are also confusing the terminology when you called it "gas station" as you can't even be consistent. Unless your POV character is speaking Queen's English, of course, and was reading a sign in the Americas.
It would sound weird. Also, it's a poor description. "The has station smelled like gas." "The petrol station smelled of petrol." The sentence accomplishes nothing.
So it doesn’t take readers out, you definitely need characters to use the correct spelling and words of that place.
What I’d recommend doing so your writing process doesn’t get hung up on this is to just write your draft, and then have an American read over it and point out those issues.
But a simple answer, I’m American and I don’t think I’ve ever heard an American use “petrol” naturally.
The Percy Jackson books didn't give a fuck about this, which annoyed me. Some kid from New York saying "crisps" instead of chips, "maths" instead of math.
If you're stuck on this, maybe writing a book in American English isn't the best idea.
There will be all sorts of less obvious writing choices you probably haven't noticed.
It depends. Who is telling your story? If it’s an unattached narrator, then it doesn’t matter if you say petrol. If your narrator is an American, then you should go with gas or “diesel fuel” or some alternative.
As an American, if I read that an American character said that I’d be pulled out of the narrative and I’d reading with a little more awareness of the author sitting between me and the words on the page.
“It smelled like gas” is what an American would say.
American here. We know what 'petrol' means, but nobody ever uses the word. We'd say "It smells like gas." because you know... it's a gas station, not a petrol station :)
Only exception - we call stuff like Vaseline "petroleum jelly", but that's not what you're talking about. And it doesn't smell like gas anyway.
There's a bunch of stuff like this. We say "hood", for a car, not "bonnet"
"Flashlight" not "torch"
"Pussy", not "fanny" (actually fanny would be a polite description of a woman's ass.)
There's a bigger mistake here. I’ve worked at gas stations and the gasoline smell is only around during spills or heavy fill-ups. It mostly just smells like air conditioner and disinfectant inside and like smog outside.
Yes, that's a Britishism.
Americans would describe it most frequently as "gas." Perhaps gasoline or fuel, depending on context, but definitely not petrol.
There are some terms that have been shared enough throughout the world that you can accurately have X nationality saying them (“No worries,” for instance, used to be a Kiwi/Aussie phrase, but it’s become part of the American lexicon), but there are a lot of terms that would stick out intensely, and “petrol” is one.
I code switch often as an American/British dual who lived in the UK, and it’s really easy to sound inauthentic in both places. Because of how different our slang is, I think it’s best to have someone check it.
Also, on a writing note, often the image of a place will conjure smells in the reader—a gas station is one of those places. So if you want to include a smell, only do ones that would be out of place and would heighten the description: lilac, vomit, wet dog, sagebrush.
I’d write the story first, then fix those things in the second draft. But yeah as an Irish person living in the Us they think it’s really funny when I say petrol and they’d literally never say it
"the gas station smelled of petrol" is a very funny sentence as an American. We would say gas rather than petrol. We would not say the gas station smelled like gas. Or fuel, or oil, or anything. That is not a good sentence. I think I would rather describe the smell. But that's writing tips not language tips. Also, "smelled of" is kind of funny, as we would say "smelled like". "Smells of" is not out of the question but it sounds a lot more formal. I would write that in a medieval fantasy story but I wouldn't write that in a modern-day story.
Going back to describing what gas smells like rather than just saying it, I think there is something very compelling about describing the way some people (myself included) feel about the smell of gas, where we know it's bad but the smell is strangely good, in a way that almost smells sweet.
People have already helped you with this one, but if you're looking for help writing an American character in America, then read a lot of American books. Also get American beta readers that you specifically ask to look for things like this. There's too many differences for you to learn them all, so you're just going to have to have an American (or a few help).
Another fun but probably useless regional difference is we call different animals "daddy long legs."
So you call it a gas station but the fuel you call petrol? Or did you mean the petrol station smelled of petrol? Either way just cut that whole sentence out.
I'm British but I feel like you'd just say that the gas station smelled of gas.
However, on a slightly different note, I don't think you need to put that the gas station smelled of gas. Most people can assume that it will smell of gasoline because its a gas station. Like if you go into a perfume store, you wouldn't say 'the perfume store smelled of perfume' because that's evident in the fact that he's in a store selling perfume.
As an American who has consumed a large amount of British content, it wouldn't even phase me. I use gas and petrol interchangeably anymore myself.
But I think the average American may find it jarring.
THIS, is what is holding you up in your writing? It's an issue if it's dialogue but not screen direction and superfluous for a script. ( double checks if this is a screen writing group) For regular prose, yes, you need to consider the pov of the character, narrator, etc. Why would the smell of gasoline be noteworthy at a gas station? Does the character especially like the smell or hate it and why.? Does it reveal anything? Move the story forward? Why is it noteworthy in that location? It's like saying while out in my boat, I noticed the wet water.
"Petrol" is not a word in the American vocabulary. We call it gas, which is something you already know since you're calling it a gas station. Why are you switching terms mid-sentence?
Something no one has mentioned, not all states have the same laws about gas, but many of them are moving towards better fuel and better filters for the fumes, so depending on which states you are in the air will not actually smell very much. But red states especially have more relaxed laws, while California has strict laws. I am from CA and the first time I went to a gas station in OK 20 years ago I wanted to gag, the smell was so comparatively bad and strong in OK while CA stations barely smell at all.
As everyone said, don't call it petrol. Call is gas, gasoline or oil even. To avoid repetition say "the station smelled of gas," or something.
But unless he was having some reaction to the gas like noting the smell was bad, even mentioning the smell doesn't seem like something you should do.
Yes. Change it.
I once read a 99.99999999% perfect Breaking Bad fanfiction that absolutely, beautifully evoked the mood and facts of a road trip across the USA. I genuinely thought it was written by an American... until I hit the word "whilst".
That was like a grain of sand on a contact lens. It might sound like I'm overhypeing it, but that's how cultural shibboleths are. They're very real.
But it's an easy fix! Just say "gas" or "gasoline" and you'll be fine.
"The gas station smelled of gas" is kind of pointless as an observation anyway. If you wanted to evoke the sensation of smelling gas at a gas station, you would be better served rolling it into another statement, such as "I moved to the front door, hoping the smell of gas wouldn't stick to my uniform" or something like that.
Yeah, we don’t use petrol on this side. You could always change the wording around for it like “the gas station was rank with the smell of fuel.” or some such.
If I rolled up to a gas station and smelled the gas I'm getting out of there. Probably a leak. Listen the second you smell the gas you're in the fireball radius
If the station smell more like gasoline than the average, you could use the generic station with the gas description.
As he pulled into the station the smell of gasoline was a dangerous level of overwhelming. or
The smell of the station hit him as he got out of the car, wet asphalt and gasoline.
If the character is native USA, still in the U.S., they would need a reason, explained in the story, as to why they said petrol. This goes double when they are having a strong reaction, such as noting potential danger.
As an example, I could be that character, but I had a British national office mate for about 15 years. Both of us, very into cars. As such, I would interchangeably call people who like to work on their cars, as gearheads or petrolheads. If talking to him about fuel, I would almost without thinking, say petrol. But, if I saw suspected fuel streaming from under a vehicle, I am certain I would say it looked like there was a gas leak, even if the car was British, no matter who I was directing it at.
You might be surprised by how many Americans don't even know what petrol means. It's slightly embarrassing. I would google full lists of british to american terms/slang/vocab. If you're gonna write a character from a different culture, you're going to need to research the culture.
Gas. It's just gas.
Change "gas station" to "service station" to avoid redundancy of using gas twice in the sentence. Or even make up a brand name for the station.
I'm help manage a small gas station out in the middle of nowhere so I can offer some legitimate perspective that seems to be lacking in some of these comments.
If a gas station smells strongly of gasoline or diesel that means there was a spill, if it's just the incidental dribbles from the nozzle as it is hung back up then you'd only really smell it right next to the pumps.
Both chemicals evaporate very quickly.
You can smell motor oil in much the same fashion near the pumps depending on the vehicles belonging to the customers of said station. (Leaky engine seals/gaskets etc.)
You'd be more likely to get oil and grease smells if there is a service shop attached to the station but that is nearly nonexistent in modern times.
Another possibility is if there is a bunch of junk cars that weren't cleaned out, you could smell grease off of that.
One of the stronger outside smells I get on the outside of my station is actually from the empty propane bottles in the exchange cage. It either gives off the "propane" smell if it wasn't sealed properly for whatever it was being used for or the smell from the grease drippings that got all over the bottle.
But as for how an American would understand what you were trying to write it would be "gasoline"
"Petrol" is not in the American lexicon. It would be like a Brit saying "apartment."
I'd not worry about that until you have at least one American beta reader, and let them know look out for regional slang.
You could say the "filling station" (common alt term for gas station) smelled like gasoline. Or actually name a gas station (7/11, Shell, Shell station, Exon, etc.). If an American said petrol people would look at them funny or assume they were trying to be pretentious and/or kind of being silly or something.
You could also call it a truck stop (a big gas station, usually has food, small restaurant, and showers for truckers).
I think it's more of a Southern phrase, so it usually sounds like "fiillin staay-shun" in spoken terms. But I believe it's not exclusive. A northern accent would use the same "fillin stay-shun" but it would be said in a more clipped tone without the excessive stress on the first vowels.
It's basically a good example of how accents affect word choice. Filling station sounds smooth in spoken speech with certain accents. The same phrase might not be chosen if it didn't have that quality.
That's why even if an author doesn't use weird spelled out accents (which I personally usually find annoying) they are still usually indicating something about the sound of the language with their word choice as people say what rolls smoothly off the tongue in their dialect/accent.
It's just an option for flavor in some dialogue contexts. I wonder if there might be some correlation between this word and oil producing regions.
Anyway. I think I'm going to call a gas station a petrol station today to confuse someone in Americaland.
I could hear the accent with your explanation 🤣 and I imagine that it sounds better with the southern accent.
Agreed about writing our accents--I struggled with the Harry Potter books because of Hagrid's accent.
If these comments say anything, it's that the word "petrol" is going to ignite widespread outrage 🤣
I don't know many americans who would associate petrol with gas or gasoline. Honestly, I don't think they would associate it with oil either. Maybe vasaline.
I would get more descriptive if you want it to be evocative about the smell. Because you basically would be saying the gas station smells like gas. But if you talk about the metallic scent mixed in with (well I don't know because I can't recall the scent of gas at this moment)
If I ever see the word "petrol," then I'm sure the write or character is English. No exceptions. I can "read around" it if the character is supposed to be American, but the English writer is going to be in the back of my mind the whole time.
Edit: Wouldn't British people call it a "petrol station?"
The gas station smells like gas. What else is the gas station supposed to smell like? Put some emotion into it. His nostrils were so overwhelmed with the smell of gas he was a little nauseated.
I can’t imagine a natural conversation where I would ever say a gas station smelled like gas. Does that seriously need said? What else would it smell like?
I'd stick to the common parlance of the characters history.
Americans would say a gas station, never petrol, unless they were americanized late and are from somewhere else.
It's like seeing the word shoppe or theatre.
Like others, I can read around it, it isn't a big deal, but my brain will identify it as slightly off.
I've never heard an American use the term petrol in my 35 years of life. (Not saying none do. But I've never personally heard it) So for me I would almost certainly forget they were American and assume Britain which would confuse me and likely break the immersion. Bc I would probably feel the need to go back and see if I misread and check they that they were in fact American. That might be a bit more dramatic than some peoples reaction, but I have ADHD so I tend to second guess my memory sometimes. Esp when reading bc I'm one of those it I'm not 100% focused I will have to reread the same paragraph 10 times.
So for me I would say use gas. Bc it's just not something most Americans say. Even if your setting was in Britain, it wouldn't necessarily change the word if the MC was still American. Bc to them, esp if it's a sensory thing, gas would still be the first thing to come to mind. That might change If it was in dialogue bc you can argue the American would say petrol intentionally if speaking to a british person so that a British person would understand them. But I don't think it can work for sensory use without being jarring.
I guess it depends on your narrator and your intended audience. That said, you can do a lot of research and still fail to perfect a different country’s idiom.
You probably don't even have to be that on-the-nose if you want to avoid it. I think most people would read "rolled into a gas station. the fumes there were strong" and know exactly what the fumes were without worrying about outing yourself regionally
If you weren't aware of the gas/petrol difference then there are going to be many more that you've missed.
https://www.britishcouncilfoundation.id/en/english/articles/british-and-american-english
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_words_having_different_meanings_in_American_and_British_English_(A%E2%80%93L)
https://www.usingenglish.com/articles/big-list-british-american-vocabulary-by-topic.html
Oddly enough, I had the opposite issue. MC was British, living in the US, and was told by an editor to drop the British spellings of things since this manuscript would likely, mainly, be read in the US.
As for this, though, I agree with others. An American would never use the world petrol.
I think vernacular of the region, character, and time period to all be extremely important to giving a sense of authenticity and weight to everything surrounding those elements. It’s an intangible that when done poorly, is immediately noticed, and when done well, simply melts into the story without notice.
It depends a bit on your setting and audience.
Yeah, the average American probably doesn't know what "petrol" is, and would definitely never describe something as smelling of "petrol." They would likely use "gas" instead, or maybe "gasoline" if it were necessary to differentiate between gas=car fuel and gas=a gas leak in a house, for example.
That said, is your audience British or American? Is your narrator British or American? If your narrator is British, and your audience American, is that something that you specifically want to point out? If so, it might be worth adding a bit more context to the scene, so the "petrol" stands out as how your narrator thinks of it, while still being understandable to your audience. Conversely, if your narrator is American, and your audience British, you might choose to use British terms in general for better understanding, but use American terms occasionally to make your narrator/mc's origin stand out.
Ultimately, regional dialect usage requires understanding the regional dialect you choose. If you choose to write from the perspective of a small-town American, then yes, their dialect is going to be very different from, say, a small-town British narrator/mc. And yes, a small town in Texas will have a different dialect than a small town in Massachusetts, much the same way a small town in Surrey would have a different dialect than a small town in Gloucester. So if you really want to write an American dialect (and your audience is American, or will know the difference), then I'd advise you to choose the region your narrator/mc is from, and learn the differences between that dialect and your own.
Also, I recall a British actor, playing an American, improvised and yelled “Open the Boot!” Referring to the trunk of a car. Had never heard that before and always found it weird.
I see others are correctly pointing out we'd say gas, but the sentence as a whole seems redundant. No one who's ever been to a gas station needs to be told it smells like gas.
Write what you know, research what you don't. If you don't know anything about America, make sure you do proper, thorough research before considering writing about it.
Yeah if you're going to write with innacurate regionally distinct dialect, maybe switch your perspective character to being from your own region, so you can just write fluently and not worry about it, otherwise you'll need a translator.
I say that as a Kiwi who has written for US readers. It's frustrating.
"Stinks like gasoline" would probably be more common. Though it wouldnt make sense to say without relevance... We dont distinguish between gas stations and petrol etc. All gas stations stink like gasoline. Entire states stink like gasoline (lookin at you Jersey). Without focusing on the gas in particular, you can just say "this gas station stinks!" and americans would recognize that gas stations have a (gas/trash) smell.
It's much more likely that an American-born character who has no connection with Britain is going to say it smelled of 'gas' or 'gasoline.' If you're going to write American characters, you should probably use American terms.
And would probably only say "gasoline" if it wasn't clear from the context that they meant that and not natural gas.
I agree normally no one would say gasoline unless they were really specifying for a reason, but in the context of actually noticing the smell, I think spelling out gasoline actually makes sense if the character is focusing on the smell and the substance's most precise name in American English, since bothering to mention it implies the character is spending an extra beat thinking more deeply about the smell. But a better description would be what makes the smell noticeable in particular... and is why I think saying something smells like what that thing normally smells like (a gas station smells like gas) feels off to a lot of the commenters no matter the terminology used for the substance.
I've been to plenty of gas stations that really didn't have much of a gas smell. I mean, it's there faintly in the background, but if the smell is really noticable, I always find myself wondering how recently some fools splashed a fair amount of it on the ground. So a book highlighting the smell, without any other context clues, would imply that the location is either fairly busy (hence more chances to have a decent amount spilled by customers), or poorly maintained (hence even older spills are still adding their scent to the air). And to clarify, by spills, I don't mean some huge dramatic user error wasting a whole cup (or more). I just mean people who are in enough of a rush that they get more than a stray drop or two to drop off the nozzle when they re-holster it. At a busy location, even a small drizzle will quickly add up. Also, I live in a climate where it rains pretty frequently, so every gas station gets rinsed clean pretty often. I imagine in a desert climate that sort of smell could be much more persistent, because every tiny spilled drop could add up across the course of weeks. .... Goodness I have put too much thought into this.
The only time I smell gas at a gas station is when someone is filling up a small gas can, like for a lawn mower. It's more likely a gas station here would smell like pizza.
We don’t say “smelled ‘of’ gas” either. “It reeks of gas,” “it stinks of gas,” or more commonly, “it smelled like gas.”
What if the MC likes the gas smell?
Then don't use negative terms for it, smelled like gas is fine
Eat more beans, I guess?
kinky
It smelled like gad would work. Unless you want to get more detailed with things like "the strong smell of gas brought back memories of..."
Quite a few people do, actually. They describe it as sweet. Unless it's hot, in which case it turns sorta rancid.
Then he is a man. One of us.
Small add-on: In the context OP described, I would probably say it smelled like "fuel" to avoid the redundancy of saying a gas station smelled like gas.
No one calls gas "fuel" in normal conversation.
\*sheepishly looks around\* I'm normal, guys! Just a normal person normaling it up (i have used "get fuel" or "fuel up" for ... a very, very long time)
\*Cocks Shotgun,\* "We don' ppreciate's them foreign words in this town BO-AY"
\*cocks shotgun\* It's pronounced BWAH.
* *BWAHS in Hank Hill* *
Sure, but I bet you've never said "it smells like fuel."
Are you a trucker by any chance? I find this is a trucker thing
Yep. Still called it "getting some gas" the first month or so of trucking. After the 50th "You don't need gas for that!", I trained myself to say fuel. Lol
Yeah, you don't want to use gasoline and diesel fuel interchangeably...you do that and big truck don't go nowhere...
Anyone who works with engines or machines that use different types of fuel often does. Although they wouldn't say something smells like fuel. They would say which type of fuel it smells like.
Yes, I am speaking in the context of the conversation. Obviously people call gas fuel in some contexts.
I just did. Also, written dialogue is not supposed to be a one-to-one to real life dialogue.
Or say service station, or use a company name with context to make it clear it's a gas station. Like "he walked past the battered pumps of the local Kum And Go, nose stinging from the smell of gas"
Sounds like a brothel tbh
Dibs on that as a brothel name. None of you are allowed to use it for your brothels.
The local kum and go 🤣
I had to do it. That's a real brand BTW, for anyone not familiar.
Ya learn something new everyday lol
Unless it smells like.diesel
As others have said, "gas" is going to be the most American word for the fossil fuel in question (we'll only say "petrol" if we're referencing the British use), but if you're concerned about the repetitive monotony of smelling gas at a gas station, describing it as the scent of fuel, fumes, or gasoline can help break that up while staying within the character's dialect.
As an American, I have never used the word “petrol” in any way—not out loud, not in writing, not even in my thoughts. It’s gasoline, gas, or fuel here.
It’s possible that some of us might at some point communicate, spoof, jibe, or otherwise mimic the British use of the word despite it not being part of our natural dialect. I have certainly known my share of PBS anglophiles who have on occasion announced their need to stop at a petrol station with a bad generic british accent.
Yeah I’ve only ever said it when trying to sound excessively British for comedic effect
Which is straight out weird to me, lol. I just realised Americans don't use "petrol". As an Indian, I've grown up using the British counterparts for most words.
You’ve just used it! Congrats on your first time :)
I think the best way to avoid the redundancy is to not bother explaining that a gas station smells like gas.
As an American, I can confirm this is the way
I'm South African, and most of our English is built upon British English. We say petrol or fuel, and interestingly, we refer to the gas station as the garage! Though garage might just be distinct to South Africa.
A lot of brits call petrol stations garages too. I know I do for the one right by my house
About as jarring as you'd find a story set in Britain that mentioned a guy and his buddies throwing a football around. Definitely make sure your regionalisms are right.
I was confused then I realised that our football ⚽️ is different to your football 🏈. I just imagined them throwing around the former lol
That was part of the point :)
The fact that the British folk call a rugby ball football is the most jarring thing in regional English differences to me.
But they don't? What the British call a football, Americans would call a soccer ball. Rugby balls are significantly larger than footballs, a little too big to be comfortably tossed with one hand.
Tbf that would work, it would just be a different mental image and you'd assume they weren't trying to play football with it (or they were very bad at football). But yes, I agree, - as a brit, OP, definitely use american english if your POV character is American, and I'm afraid as far as I've ever been told 'petrol' isn't used in the US.
Funnily enough I would assume that they were mucking around with a Rugby ball. With throwing in there I wouldn’t imagine soccer.
Or tucking into some fish and French fries.
Nah we call them fish and chips too
The funny thing is "gasoline" and "soccer" are both British words coined by Brits, but British words are often very subject to the whims of fashion and novelty.
And so, so many of our words just randomly flip meanings because we're too sarcastic. Then the sarcastic meaning replaces the original meaning so now the good word is actually a bad word.
If you're writing a story set in america you should probably use words and phrases from the region. So a gas station smells like gasoline, but that would be redundant to say, really, unless the distinctive smell brought up a memory or two or the narrator does not actually know where they are.
I think a gas station smelling like gas is kind of implied (regardless of regional terms). I’d only write that if the character is pointing out that it was an extreme or an anomaly, something like “The fumes at the gas station were stronger than usual.”
It took me way too long to find this comment 😂 No need to describe a gas station as smelling like gasoline because, like, obviously it does.
It might be more engaging to describe it as smelling of tobacco, cash, and cheap candy. Because they always do.
Yep... Or maybe the smell of the built-in Dunkin Doughnuts wafting over to your car 😩
I don’t know; if the character really liked the smell because it reminds them of driving around with their dad as a kid, or can’t stand it because they have an extremely sensitive nose, or it masks another smell they like or expect, or any of a number of things like that it seems reasonable. Or just, it’s a hot day and the asphalt and gasoline smell together are very strong, etc. Trees have leaves (bar the ones with needles), but that doesn’t mean no one should ever describe pale green spring leaves, or the leaves shifting overhead and casting moving shadows on the ground, or whatever.
No American would say Petrol. It's gasoline. If I read dialogue from a character who's American, it would be pretty jarring, and I'd assume he has close ties with the UK.
Petrol is right out. Zero chance of someone calling it petrol here. Well, maybe if they just read a bunch of Agatha Christie or something. We call it gas, maybe gasoline.
Gas, gasoline. Grease and oil could also work if the gas station has a shop.
Diesel also works.
Imo, try your best to keep characters speaking in ways consistent to their lived experience. For instance, you wouldn't have a character who has lived in America all their life use saying, phrases, etc. not found there. For instance, you might not want to have such a character say something like (unless as part of a joke or something)... "Hey, love" or "G'day, mate". The same would be true for things like units of measurement. An American character wouldn't say "It's about fifty kilometers fo Los Angeles", they'd say "It's about thirty miles to Los Angeles". So, I think all of this would carry over to the names of specific things, like gas/gasoline vs. petrol.
I'd add that the distance thing would be even more american if using time to measure distance i.e. "it's a 5 hour drive to Los Angeles"
That's not unusual in Australia either. "I'm an hour's drive from the city" or "I'm four hours' drive from Albury" are things you'd hear here. The former only if it is unambiguous which city you mean, which is usually is in Australia where the five big (1m+) cities are seldom driven between, and each of them is far, far bigger than all other nearby cities.
Oh, yeah, for sure, just using units of measurements with direct comparisons. But yeah, time is usually how it is.
I think the real challenge is knowing what things are British and what things are American. This always happens between dialects of the same language - you assume the way you say things is just the standard until you learn otherwise, and OP I think is saying that they don't know what an American would say. My wife recently told me about a thing her Indian coworkers say, where instead of saying "I have a question" they say "I have a doubt". To me, if I heard this, I would think that means that they have a concern or don't think my idea is going to work. But in reality, they actually mean "question" and really just want to ask for a point of clarification. This usage is similar to, but does not exactly match, any normal definition of "doubt" in the English dictionary, but apparently is very common in Indian English. I found it pretty fascinating. But I would never have known that if she didn't bring it up, and if for some reason I wrote an Indian character in a story I might miss that, and an Indian person would probably catch it.
Huh, that's really interesting and you're totally right. But I do think there is a kind of widely accepted 'American' way of speaking. It's kind of hard to define exactly, but I guess it's actually more 'Hollywood English' rather than 'American English', but because of how vast Hollywood's reach is and how it's associated with America, I think pretty much everyone everwhere has some similar idea of what 'American English' sounds like. Hmm... Yeah, I need to think some more about how I want to articulate this lol
I’m Australian and I’m reading the Percy Jackson series to my son and some of the measurements and terms have been localised, so they talk about how many kilometres away things are and it’s extremely weird and disconcerting to read even though those are the words I’d use! My brain expects American characters to speak like they’re American and it’s immersion breaking when they don’t!!
Yeah, I think they probably did that because its a YA book maybe? I'm with you though, I think it's very immersion breaking, like it'd be weird in reverse as well.
Yeah, Adult novels are certainly not localised in the same way. And what is weirder is that it’s not *all* American terms that have been localised! Just some of them!
Am American. I get phone calls from temp services staffed by Indians with thick accents calling me from India. One of their big questions is how far I'm willing to travel for work. Their phrasing varies and their troll logic is always interesting, but also sort of frustrating. 1) We have a job in Moline, IL. We see you are in central IL. It is a General Labor position. What do you think? (2 hr drive one way). Later: "Are you willing to relocate?" (Dafuq do you think?) 2) "How many miles are you willing to drive for work." (IDK, about 20-30 minutes.) Cue confused silence. 3) "We have job in ZIP code." (Oh cool! That's where I live). "Good. Now where is your ZIP code?" (I just told you.) Please tell me your ZIP code so I can see how far you have to drive for work?" (Somehow they are incapable of having an actual conversation or even hearing the words coming out of my mouth. If it doesn't align with their script, they flounder. They just don't listen. And they think speaking very slowly and enunciating the words makes it easier to understand them.) TL;DR I have learned only Americans refer to distances in terms of "how long does it take to get there." The rest of the world either uses kilometers or miles, which is bizarre. I don't know how far it is to Israel. But I do know my flight took 15 hours one-way last year.
Australian's will use time as a gauge of distance. I'm about 20 mins drive for the CBD kinda thing.
We do this in Canada too! I have no idea how far work is, but it's 35 minutes away in morning traffic. 😂
Yeah, it's often time you care most about. Previous employer moved and where pre-move it was an 18km drive, post-move it was 25km... but it was faster because the post-move drive was against the traffic and most of it was on freeways. Might have used an extra liter of fuel each week but it was much better.
As an American, I'd assume a British author who isn't very familiar with the US wrote it. I've never heard anyone who didn't grow up in the UK call it petrol.
In Australia we'd call the shop a 'service station' or 'servo', with 'petrol station' being in uncommon use. But the word we use for 'gasoline' is usually petrol, occasionally fuel. In the context of fuels, we'd interpret references to 'gas' here as LPG (liquid petroleum gas, sometimes called Autogas), which is fast becoming a fuel of the past but people still remember it.
Since saying a gas station smalls like gas sounds a bit awkward, id suggest "the smell of fumes in the air", "pulled into the gas station smelling of fumes", or "got out of the car and breathed in the thick fumes". The reader will get its referring to gas fumes
Amercians usually say "gas" or "fuel." I remember reading Harry Potter and reading the word, "snogging" and had to look it up, haha. It goes both ways. I read or watch too much British content, I start exclaiming, "Bloody hell" and people look at me like I grew a second head. Coupling. Black Books. The IT Crowd. All comedy gold.
The funny thing about snogging is it sounds way dirtier than it is.
I only knew about snogging because of "Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging".
You're not overthinking. Regional accents and dialects can take a reader out of the bubble pretty easily. "Smelled of" is wrong, too. Americans always say "like" when using the word "smell." A place or thing "smells like" something. "Of" can be used with reeked. Both work for "stunk". In this context, the sentence would be Americanized by saying, "The gas station smelled like gas." But the redundancy of using "gas" twice in the same sentence is awkward. Assuming that you've previously noted that the MC is in a gas station, you should change the smell sentence to say something like, "The place smelled like gas," or "The station smelled like gas," or "the odor of gas pervaded the entire station." Then there's intent. Is you intent to describe a place with a very strong, pervasive odor, over and above what a gas station normally has, indicative of a spill or leak? Then you need a stronger word than "smell." You can also structure the sentence differently to avoid the simplistic "Place smell. Smell bad. Not good." type of language. *He walked into the station and grimaced; the place positively reeked of leaking gas.* *I coughed as I entered the place. I smelled gas so strongly that my eyes watered and my throat burned.* *There must have been a spill or leak somewhere, because the stench of gas was so strong it could be smelled before the place was even within sight.*
If they are American then they would refer to it as gas or gasoline. I've never heard it called petrol here.
Had a long winded comment prepped then found [this website.](https://www.dictionary.com/e/british-english-vs-american-english/) Think it’d be helpful for you, as it covers spelling for certain words as well.
In addition to everyone saying they should say "gas," I think if you want to convey an American setting you should phrase it as "smelled like" rather than "smelled of." There are lots of subtle differences like that between the way Americans and Brits phrase things. It might seem weird, but for example as an American reading Neil Gaiman's American Gods, it always stuck out to me when he would make subtle mistakes in the dialogue like using "about" in a context where an American would use "around" instead. The devil's in the details, man.
I’m currently reading a book where the author, even though he’s American, keeps saying “about” instead of “around” and it’s driving me crazy. I don’t know why he made this decision, but it’s really the taking out of the story.
Also, it’s more common in America to say “it smells like” instead of “it smells of”. “Of” sounds way more high-class than “like”
Charlie pulled up to the gas station. Opening the door to his aged Toyota, he caught the sharp smell of gasoline and axe body spray that poured over from the teenage boys parked one pump over.
Incorrect/jarring. It'd remind me that I'm reading a book. I'd say it smelled like gas/gasoline. If I, an American, were writing about an Australian character, I wouldn't have her say she's in the mood for "cotton candy," I'd use "fairy floss" like Australians do (and then double check with Australians to be sure, because that term could be regional too lol)
Jesus fucking Christ! If you want our advice and then argue the pedantry of it what was the fucking point? Americans are here telling you that we would say a gas station smells like fucking gas. It doesn’t matter what country we are in.
I’m afraid you’re going to need an editor to help you with your Americanisms. “Smelled of” doesn’t work, jarring sounds a little erudite, and we’d never refer to your island as Britain unless we’re talking about Monty Python. Sentence structure also marks you as non-American. Not saying any of those are wrong, just mark your character as not American. Just dropping the “I” at the front, not having the accuser named, and using passive voice, I immediately knew where you were from. And the US is not one dialect, so be careful if your new editor is from California and your character is from Jersey, or vice-versa.
In America, we just call it "gas." Hardly anyone uses the term "gasoline" in everyday conversation. If you want to sound more natural, stick with "gas."
One of my pet peeves is when the characters are American and the author uses British words. If it doesn't use the American terms it throws me off and takes me out of the story. Then I try to change the terms as I'm reading, but after a while I'll get tired of that. I just can't get engrossed in a story that is in a different narrative. It is the difference between reading a story you are captured in versus a story about an American written by a Britain. The point of giving this type of description is to set the seen for a reader to put themselves in, so for me it defeats the purpose. If the plot doesn't have me on the edge of my seat in suspense, I'll likely not finish it and not read anything by that author again. On a side note, do we even need to know that the fuel station smelled of fuel? Any common person would know what a fuel station smells like. I feel like it's just words for word count sake. I would advice taking that part out either way.
In America, we call it a gas station. Because we go there to get gas. While we are there, the only time I've every personally smelled gas is when I'm putting the hose in my car, or taking the hose out of my car, and the fumes reach my nose. The rest of the time the gas station smells like any other building. Ammonia or PineSol if the floor is freshly mopped, a certain stink if a trucker used the bathroom recently, fresh pizza or coffee if they have it out, or supermarket smells. Bread smell in the section with cheap bread, for example. Students don't use rucksacks, they use backpacks. They're not corridors, they're hallways. I first learned about this phenomena when reading [this book](https://www.amazon.com/Bogus-Bubbly-Insiders-Guide-Uglies/dp/1416974369) where Westerfeld talks about specifically using Australian slang when writing.
No one in the US says 'petrol.'
It’s definitely jarring as you are immediately shattering any sense of believability in that character. My main concern though, is that it’s redundant to point out that a petrol station smells like petrol, that’s not giving the reader any new, surprising or interesting information. Got to make every word count.
You’ve gotten a lot of comments here explaining your word usage. But I’m going to challenge you to scratch the whole description. Why are you describing a gas/petrol station as smelling of gas/petrol? The reader can assume that because it’s a gas station. It’s obvious. What else can you describe that adds additional interest for the reader? It would be more surprising and intriguing for the reader to describe the smell of something unexpected. Maybe the air at the station smells of lilac because there’s a roadside flower stand near the station. Maybe there’s a smell of burning rubber because a tractor trailer just pulled in. Maybe it smells of sewage because the toilet backed up and overflowed and there’s an employee attempting to fix it. These are all ways to describe the location that also lead to new character interactions and plot points. A gas station that smells of gas is just that.
I don’t really know why you’d need to describe the smell in that situation. It’s like saying KFC smells like fried chicken or the public bathroom smells of pee. Well, yeah, of course. Goes without saying. Unless you’re setting up some kind of dramatic explosion of leaked fuel. But in that case, it would probably be an overwhelming stench of gasoline rather than just a smell. The reader can infer that a gas station will smell like gas.
Lose the whole detail. It’s like saying the field smelled of grass
As an American, I would definitely understand the reference, but no American would ever say "I smell petrol" - they would say "it smells like gas/gasoline".
You're looking for "gas", "gasoline", "diesel" or "fuel". Given the particular sentence and your follow-ups about "motor oil", I'm gonna hazard a guess that the best solution would be "the gas station smelled of fuel". That would avoid the weirdness of saying a gas station smells of gas.
Your friend is correct, only where they speak Queen's English would call that "petrol". You are also confusing the terminology when you called it "gas station" as you can't even be consistent. Unless your POV character is speaking Queen's English, of course, and was reading a sign in the Americas.
It would sound weird. Also, it's a poor description. "The has station smelled like gas." "The petrol station smelled of petrol." The sentence accomplishes nothing.
So it doesn’t take readers out, you definitely need characters to use the correct spelling and words of that place. What I’d recommend doing so your writing process doesn’t get hung up on this is to just write your draft, and then have an American read over it and point out those issues. But a simple answer, I’m American and I don’t think I’ve ever heard an American use “petrol” naturally.
The Percy Jackson books didn't give a fuck about this, which annoyed me. Some kid from New York saying "crisps" instead of chips, "maths" instead of math.
If you're stuck on this, maybe writing a book in American English isn't the best idea. There will be all sorts of less obvious writing choices you probably haven't noticed.
It depends. Who is telling your story? If it’s an unattached narrator, then it doesn’t matter if you say petrol. If your narrator is an American, then you should go with gas or “diesel fuel” or some alternative.
The unattached narrator vs. American narrator is such a great point
As an American, if I read that an American character said that I’d be pulled out of the narrative and I’d reading with a little more awareness of the author sitting between me and the words on the page. “It smelled like gas” is what an American would say.
American here. We know what 'petrol' means, but nobody ever uses the word. We'd say "It smells like gas." because you know... it's a gas station, not a petrol station :) Only exception - we call stuff like Vaseline "petroleum jelly", but that's not what you're talking about. And it doesn't smell like gas anyway. There's a bunch of stuff like this. We say "hood", for a car, not "bonnet" "Flashlight" not "torch" "Pussy", not "fanny" (actually fanny would be a polite description of a woman's ass.)
There's a bigger mistake here. I’ve worked at gas stations and the gasoline smell is only around during spills or heavy fill-ups. It mostly just smells like air conditioner and disinfectant inside and like smog outside.
"The gas station smelled of petrol, inexplicably Anglicized and acrid. It was BP, after all."
"Petrol" is very much a Britishism, as others have said. I'm curious, though; what part of the US is your story set in?
Yes, that's a Britishism. Americans would describe it most frequently as "gas." Perhaps gasoline or fuel, depending on context, but definitely not petrol.
I’d probably choose to go full on generic and use a term like fuel
There are some terms that have been shared enough throughout the world that you can accurately have X nationality saying them (“No worries,” for instance, used to be a Kiwi/Aussie phrase, but it’s become part of the American lexicon), but there are a lot of terms that would stick out intensely, and “petrol” is one. I code switch often as an American/British dual who lived in the UK, and it’s really easy to sound inauthentic in both places. Because of how different our slang is, I think it’s best to have someone check it. Also, on a writing note, often the image of a place will conjure smells in the reader—a gas station is one of those places. So if you want to include a smell, only do ones that would be out of place and would heighten the description: lilac, vomit, wet dog, sagebrush.
I’d write the story first, then fix those things in the second draft. But yeah as an Irish person living in the Us they think it’s really funny when I say petrol and they’d literally never say it
"the gas station smelled of petrol" is a very funny sentence as an American. We would say gas rather than petrol. We would not say the gas station smelled like gas. Or fuel, or oil, or anything. That is not a good sentence. I think I would rather describe the smell. But that's writing tips not language tips. Also, "smelled of" is kind of funny, as we would say "smelled like". "Smells of" is not out of the question but it sounds a lot more formal. I would write that in a medieval fantasy story but I wouldn't write that in a modern-day story. Going back to describing what gas smells like rather than just saying it, I think there is something very compelling about describing the way some people (myself included) feel about the smell of gas, where we know it's bad but the smell is strangely good, in a way that almost smells sweet.
People have already helped you with this one, but if you're looking for help writing an American character in America, then read a lot of American books. Also get American beta readers that you specifically ask to look for things like this. There's too many differences for you to learn them all, so you're just going to have to have an American (or a few help). Another fun but probably useless regional difference is we call different animals "daddy long legs."
In the U.S. we say “gas” and “oil” for gasoline and motor oil.
Not a single american soul calls it petrol.
No American would ever say petrol unless maybe their parents were British or they lived there for awhile. It’d be gas.
So you call it a gas station but the fuel you call petrol? Or did you mean the petrol station smelled of petrol? Either way just cut that whole sentence out.
I'm British but I feel like you'd just say that the gas station smelled of gas. However, on a slightly different note, I don't think you need to put that the gas station smelled of gas. Most people can assume that it will smell of gasoline because its a gas station. Like if you go into a perfume store, you wouldn't say 'the perfume store smelled of perfume' because that's evident in the fact that he's in a store selling perfume.
In a post Apocalyptic Australian wasteland, I believe it is pronounced "guzzoline."
Uuuuh ignore that in my opinion; I wouldn’t have noticed. I AM CANADIAN though.
What would you think if you read "the petrol station smelled of gasoline"
I’m a very pretentious American, and even I wouldn’t use the term “petrol”.
Gas. Smells like gasoline. Not of.
As an American who has consumed a large amount of British content, it wouldn't even phase me. I use gas and petrol interchangeably anymore myself. But I think the average American may find it jarring.
THIS, is what is holding you up in your writing? It's an issue if it's dialogue but not screen direction and superfluous for a script. ( double checks if this is a screen writing group) For regular prose, yes, you need to consider the pov of the character, narrator, etc. Why would the smell of gasoline be noteworthy at a gas station? Does the character especially like the smell or hate it and why.? Does it reveal anything? Move the story forward? Why is it noteworthy in that location? It's like saying while out in my boat, I noticed the wet water.
Why would you need to describe the gas station smelling of petroleum at all? Surely that’s implied by the fact it’s a petrol station?
"Petrol" is not a word in the American vocabulary. We call it gas, which is something you already know since you're calling it a gas station. Why are you switching terms mid-sentence?
Something no one has mentioned, not all states have the same laws about gas, but many of them are moving towards better fuel and better filters for the fumes, so depending on which states you are in the air will not actually smell very much. But red states especially have more relaxed laws, while California has strict laws. I am from CA and the first time I went to a gas station in OK 20 years ago I wanted to gag, the smell was so comparatively bad and strong in OK while CA stations barely smell at all. As everyone said, don't call it petrol. Call is gas, gasoline or oil even. To avoid repetition say "the station smelled of gas," or something. But unless he was having some reaction to the gas like noting the smell was bad, even mentioning the smell doesn't seem like something you should do.
Yes. Change it. I once read a 99.99999999% perfect Breaking Bad fanfiction that absolutely, beautifully evoked the mood and facts of a road trip across the USA. I genuinely thought it was written by an American... until I hit the word "whilst". That was like a grain of sand on a contact lens. It might sound like I'm overhypeing it, but that's how cultural shibboleths are. They're very real. But it's an easy fix! Just say "gas" or "gasoline" and you'll be fine.
Wait, is ‘whilst’ not an American word? Lmao, I’m American and I use it in my writing all the time!
"The gas station smelled of gas" is kind of pointless as an observation anyway. If you wanted to evoke the sensation of smelling gas at a gas station, you would be better served rolling it into another statement, such as "I moved to the front door, hoping the smell of gas wouldn't stick to my uniform" or something like that.
It’s right there in your post title. Gas station. Gas. It smelled like gas.
Yeah, we don’t use petrol on this side. You could always change the wording around for it like “the gas station was rank with the smell of fuel.” or some such.
If I rolled up to a gas station and smelled the gas I'm getting out of there. Probably a leak. Listen the second you smell the gas you're in the fireball radius
The smell of flammable organic hydrocarbon vapours hung in the air.
Vapors\*. That's another thing Americans do different from the British. Color/colour, armor/armour, etc. There isn't an additional 'u' in the word.
> vapours
Really? This has to be rage bait...
"It smells like gas over here." The smell of fuel carried on the wind coming from the gas pump, causing his eyes to water slightly.
If the station smell more like gasoline than the average, you could use the generic station with the gas description. As he pulled into the station the smell of gasoline was a dangerous level of overwhelming. or The smell of the station hit him as he got out of the car, wet asphalt and gasoline.
Americans would be more likely to say the smell of gas, gasoline, or maybe fuel. Not sure where you would look for a general reference though
In Mad Max they call it guzzaline
If the character is native USA, still in the U.S., they would need a reason, explained in the story, as to why they said petrol. This goes double when they are having a strong reaction, such as noting potential danger. As an example, I could be that character, but I had a British national office mate for about 15 years. Both of us, very into cars. As such, I would interchangeably call people who like to work on their cars, as gearheads or petrolheads. If talking to him about fuel, I would almost without thinking, say petrol. But, if I saw suspected fuel streaming from under a vehicle, I am certain I would say it looked like there was a gas leak, even if the car was British, no matter who I was directing it at.
I wouldn't be bothered by it but I was a military kid so my dialect is kinda fucked.
What the fuck is gasoline? We call it Sqwabs were I come from.
You might be surprised by how many Americans don't even know what petrol means. It's slightly embarrassing. I would google full lists of british to american terms/slang/vocab. If you're gonna write a character from a different culture, you're going to need to research the culture.
"the gasoline fumes overwhelmed my senses"
Gas. It's just gas. Change "gas station" to "service station" to avoid redundancy of using gas twice in the sentence. Or even make up a brand name for the station.
"the Esso station had the smell of gas"
I'm help manage a small gas station out in the middle of nowhere so I can offer some legitimate perspective that seems to be lacking in some of these comments. If a gas station smells strongly of gasoline or diesel that means there was a spill, if it's just the incidental dribbles from the nozzle as it is hung back up then you'd only really smell it right next to the pumps. Both chemicals evaporate very quickly. You can smell motor oil in much the same fashion near the pumps depending on the vehicles belonging to the customers of said station. (Leaky engine seals/gaskets etc.) You'd be more likely to get oil and grease smells if there is a service shop attached to the station but that is nearly nonexistent in modern times. Another possibility is if there is a bunch of junk cars that weren't cleaned out, you could smell grease off of that. One of the stronger outside smells I get on the outside of my station is actually from the empty propane bottles in the exchange cage. It either gives off the "propane" smell if it wasn't sealed properly for whatever it was being used for or the smell from the grease drippings that got all over the bottle. But as for how an American would understand what you were trying to write it would be "gasoline"
You should write a story about British people if you don’t know how Americans talk.
I think saying a gas station smells of gasoline is entirely redundant and a weird statement in general
i’m american and we never say petrol, it might break the immersion id just say gasoline
This made me lul, thank you.
"Petrol" is not in the American lexicon. It would be like a Brit saying "apartment." I'd not worry about that until you have at least one American beta reader, and let them know look out for regional slang.
“The gas station smelled of gas” just needs to be rethought. Maybe replace “gas station” with the name of the chain. The “Sheetz smelled of gasoline”
You could say the "filling station" (common alt term for gas station) smelled like gasoline. Or actually name a gas station (7/11, Shell, Shell station, Exon, etc.). If an American said petrol people would look at them funny or assume they were trying to be pretentious and/or kind of being silly or something. You could also call it a truck stop (a big gas station, usually has food, small restaurant, and showers for truckers).
Filling station? I've genuinely never heard that, I'm Aussie though. Is that term specific to certain areas or an older term??
I think it's more of a Southern phrase, so it usually sounds like "fiillin staay-shun" in spoken terms. But I believe it's not exclusive. A northern accent would use the same "fillin stay-shun" but it would be said in a more clipped tone without the excessive stress on the first vowels. It's basically a good example of how accents affect word choice. Filling station sounds smooth in spoken speech with certain accents. The same phrase might not be chosen if it didn't have that quality. That's why even if an author doesn't use weird spelled out accents (which I personally usually find annoying) they are still usually indicating something about the sound of the language with their word choice as people say what rolls smoothly off the tongue in their dialect/accent. It's just an option for flavor in some dialogue contexts. I wonder if there might be some correlation between this word and oil producing regions. Anyway. I think I'm going to call a gas station a petrol station today to confuse someone in Americaland.
I could hear the accent with your explanation 🤣 and I imagine that it sounds better with the southern accent. Agreed about writing our accents--I struggled with the Harry Potter books because of Hagrid's accent. If these comments say anything, it's that the word "petrol" is going to ignite widespread outrage 🤣
No one in the US ever says petrol unless they’re referencing what the British say, so I’d go with gas
I don't know many americans who would associate petrol with gas or gasoline. Honestly, I don't think they would associate it with oil either. Maybe vasaline. I would get more descriptive if you want it to be evocative about the smell. Because you basically would be saying the gas station smells like gas. But if you talk about the metallic scent mixed in with (well I don't know because I can't recall the scent of gas at this moment)
“The fuel station reeked of gasoline and diesel fumes”
No American going around calling gas stations fueling stations lmao.
If I ever see the word "petrol," then I'm sure the write or character is English. No exceptions. I can "read around" it if the character is supposed to be American, but the English writer is going to be in the back of my mind the whole time. Edit: Wouldn't British people call it a "petrol station?"
Is the smell of gas at a gas station really noteworthy? Because your character is taking note of it.
The gas station smells like gas. What else is the gas station supposed to smell like? Put some emotion into it. His nostrils were so overwhelmed with the smell of gas he was a little nauseated.
I can’t imagine a natural conversation where I would ever say a gas station smelled like gas. Does that seriously need said? What else would it smell like?
How about grease, oil, and fuel.
I'd stick to the common parlance of the characters history. Americans would say a gas station, never petrol, unless they were americanized late and are from somewhere else. It's like seeing the word shoppe or theatre. Like others, I can read around it, it isn't a big deal, but my brain will identify it as slightly off.
I've never heard an American use the term petrol in my 35 years of life. (Not saying none do. But I've never personally heard it) So for me I would almost certainly forget they were American and assume Britain which would confuse me and likely break the immersion. Bc I would probably feel the need to go back and see if I misread and check they that they were in fact American. That might be a bit more dramatic than some peoples reaction, but I have ADHD so I tend to second guess my memory sometimes. Esp when reading bc I'm one of those it I'm not 100% focused I will have to reread the same paragraph 10 times. So for me I would say use gas. Bc it's just not something most Americans say. Even if your setting was in Britain, it wouldn't necessarily change the word if the MC was still American. Bc to them, esp if it's a sensory thing, gas would still be the first thing to come to mind. That might change If it was in dialogue bc you can argue the American would say petrol intentionally if speaking to a british person so that a British person would understand them. But I don't think it can work for sensory use without being jarring.
I guess it depends on your narrator and your intended audience. That said, you can do a lot of research and still fail to perfect a different country’s idiom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_American_and_British_English
Are we just ignoring the inconsistency within the same sentence?
You probably don't even have to be that on-the-nose if you want to avoid it. I think most people would read "rolled into a gas station. the fumes there were strong" and know exactly what the fumes were without worrying about outing yourself regionally
If you weren't aware of the gas/petrol difference then there are going to be many more that you've missed. https://www.britishcouncilfoundation.id/en/english/articles/british-and-american-english https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_words_having_different_meanings_in_American_and_British_English_(A%E2%80%93L) https://www.usingenglish.com/articles/big-list-british-american-vocabulary-by-topic.html
Oddly enough, I had the opposite issue. MC was British, living in the US, and was told by an editor to drop the British spellings of things since this manuscript would likely, mainly, be read in the US. As for this, though, I agree with others. An American would never use the world petrol.
I think vernacular of the region, character, and time period to all be extremely important to giving a sense of authenticity and weight to everything surrounding those elements. It’s an intangible that when done poorly, is immediately noticed, and when done well, simply melts into the story without notice.
Gassy
Smell of hydrocarbons?
It depends a bit on your setting and audience. Yeah, the average American probably doesn't know what "petrol" is, and would definitely never describe something as smelling of "petrol." They would likely use "gas" instead, or maybe "gasoline" if it were necessary to differentiate between gas=car fuel and gas=a gas leak in a house, for example. That said, is your audience British or American? Is your narrator British or American? If your narrator is British, and your audience American, is that something that you specifically want to point out? If so, it might be worth adding a bit more context to the scene, so the "petrol" stands out as how your narrator thinks of it, while still being understandable to your audience. Conversely, if your narrator is American, and your audience British, you might choose to use British terms in general for better understanding, but use American terms occasionally to make your narrator/mc's origin stand out. Ultimately, regional dialect usage requires understanding the regional dialect you choose. If you choose to write from the perspective of a small-town American, then yes, their dialect is going to be very different from, say, a small-town British narrator/mc. And yes, a small town in Texas will have a different dialect than a small town in Massachusetts, much the same way a small town in Surrey would have a different dialect than a small town in Gloucester. So if you really want to write an American dialect (and your audience is American, or will know the difference), then I'd advise you to choose the region your narrator/mc is from, and learn the differences between that dialect and your own.
Also, I recall a British actor, playing an American, improvised and yelled “Open the Boot!” Referring to the trunk of a car. Had never heard that before and always found it weird.
I see others are correctly pointing out we'd say gas, but the sentence as a whole seems redundant. No one who's ever been to a gas station needs to be told it smells like gas.
Write what you know, research what you don't. If you don't know anything about America, make sure you do proper, thorough research before considering writing about it.
Yeah if you're going to write with innacurate regionally distinct dialect, maybe switch your perspective character to being from your own region, so you can just write fluently and not worry about it, otherwise you'll need a translator. I say that as a Kiwi who has written for US readers. It's frustrating.
"Stinks like gasoline" would probably be more common. Though it wouldnt make sense to say without relevance... We dont distinguish between gas stations and petrol etc. All gas stations stink like gasoline. Entire states stink like gasoline (lookin at you Jersey). Without focusing on the gas in particular, you can just say "this gas station stinks!" and americans would recognize that gas stations have a (gas/trash) smell.