Fracking, Fracing, Or Frac'ing?

At StateImpact Pennsylvania, we aim to answer the really important questions.
Such as: just how do you spell fracking – the shorthand term for hydraulic fracturing –  and does the verb have anything to do with Battlestar Galactica?
The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Andrew Maykuth gets to the heart of the matter in a piece that ran this weekend:

The gas-drilling frack should not be confused with the made-for-TV frak, a faux curse coined by the writers of the science-fiction series “Battlestar Galactica” long before hydraulic fracturing moved into the mainstream. The Battlestar producers wanted a four-letter word, so they deliberately spelled the word with only a K.
The ambiguity of frack has some unintended consequences, including creating new parental challenges. One Mount Airy mother whose young son encountered a neighbor’s anti-drilling sign struggled over when was the right age to talk to her child about fracking.

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