EPA subpoenas Halliburton over fracking fluids | Reuters

[Joel S. Berson]

At 11/9/2010 06:42 PM, Lisa Galvin wrote:
>
>Expletive.
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frak_(expletive)

Or in "Obs. exc. Sc." in the OED.

More pertinent, however, is the OED's

"sandfracing, sand fracing, vbl. n.  Also
-fraccing, -fracking.  A method of stimulating
production from an oil field by forcing fluid
containing sand grains into the reservoir rock.
So {sm}sandfrac n., a name for this process; sand
frac(k v. trans. and absol., to apply this treatment to (an oil field).
      1960 Oil & Gas Reporter XII. 1034 After the
well was completed, Phillips contracted with D to sand frack."

Now presumably streamlined to omit the "sand".

I think I saw "frack" or "fracking", with a
similar explanation of the process, likely in the
NYTimes or Boston Globe, some weeks ago, applied
to one of the possible, or actually used,
techniques for capping the notorious BP well,
rather than to an oil or natural gas extraction
method.  But their archives don/t seem to support
me, and perhaps I'm mis-remembering the
contention over the use of sandfracking for
natural gas extraction in New York State recently --

The BG has from a news wire " "There's no way
this can be done safely. It will toxify the air,
water and soil," said protester Kathy Shimberg,
73, of Mount Vision, N.Y., wearing a T-shirt that
read "Love N.Y.? Don't frack it up." " Sept. 13, 2010.

Joel


> > Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2010 18:28:15 -0500
> > From: hwgray at GMAIL.COM
> > Subject: Re: EPA subpoenas Halliburton over fracking fluids | Reuters
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >
> > ---------------------- Information from the
> mail header -----------------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject: Re: EPA subpoenas Halliburton over fracking fluids | Reuters
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On Tue, Nov 9, 2010 at 4:17 PM, Victor
> Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > It seems doubtful that the writers of the new Battlestar Galactica
> > > franchise (recently canceled, apparently) had much of an idea that
> > > "fracking" is a real word.
> > >
> >
> > I've never watched BsG. What does "fracking"
> mean as used in the BsG context?
> >
> > FWIW, I once had no idea that _arse_ was a real word. As a child, back
> > in the '40's, I "invented" it as a cover for _ass_.
> >
> > --
> > -Wilson
> > ­­­
> > All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"­­a strange complaint to
> > come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> > ­Mark Twain
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
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