" Only when they had diluted their leaded gasoline by more than 1,000 to 1 were they able to produce knocking. Midgley rushed off to tell Kettering, who said later that day was the most dramatic of his entire research career.47 The new compound needed a name. For reasons never revealed, Kettering chose “ethyl,” which confused it with ethyl alcohol and left out the significant fact that it was a soluble compound of lead, a substance long known to be poisonous. "

― Richard Rhodes , Energy: A Human History