In article ,
Cub Driver wrote:

Everyone I know, and that would include the mechanics (perhaps they
are only humoring us idiots), who goes out on a cold morning and has
the engine start and then quit on him, would grouse that it had
stalled.


As someone who's not a mechanic, but who got his first drivers license
in 1945 and was brought up in snow country (Michigan), my understanding
has always been that "stalling" (of an auto engine anyway) refers to the
engine quitting *when a load is first put on it*. (You can't stall an
auto with the gearshift in neutral.)

Stalling was a lot more likely to happen, at least before computer
controlled autos came along, when the engine was just started and still
cold; but cold (and perhaps misadjusted) engines were also prone to
stumble, sputter, and quit on their own (while the driver pushed and
yanked on the choke knob) without any load applied, just out of
orneriness.