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He's not saying Standard Oil invented the term fossil, he's saying they invented/popularised the term "fossil fuel"

Google ngrams reveals his claim to be flagrant horse shit. The term wasn't popular until several decades after standard oil ceased to exist.

That may be true, but Google ngrams is hardly holy writ in the matter.

That may be true, but EricE is parroting long-since-debunked fake Facebook memes:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40664837>

Enough bullshit flinging already, eh?

Oddly enough, the term only really took off in the 1970s:

<https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=fossil%20fuel&...>

Zooming in on the 19th century, the term was already seeing use in the 1770s/80s, and was rising in usage well before 1860, by which time it had reached a peak.

<https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=fossil+fuel&ye...>

The Standard Oil Company was founded in 1882. Its predecessor Standard Oil Company of Ohio was founded in 1870.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil>

I call bullshit on EricE's unfounded claims.

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