Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Robert on January 6, 2012 at 10:11

I think it should fracing...

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Permalink Reply by essay on January 6, 2012 at 10:20

agreed, there is no k!

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Permalink Reply by Hopeful About Natural Gas on January 6, 2012 at 10:20

Thanks Robert,  I have a very dim memory that when I first got involved with shale gas (way back in '08) the accepted term was "frac".  I have a coffee cup from the 1st Haynesville Shale Expo with "Frac Fluid" on it.

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I believe the first time I saw "frack" was on an anti-shale gas site (Frack Action?).  Environmentalists might not have coined the term Frack, but that's where I remember it first.  Anyone else??

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It might have been the news media simply looking for an easier, more standard way to spell it, so they used "Frack". I used to write for a newspaper and they do that sort of thing with grammar and spelling.  Newspapers used to be on the leading edge of language changes.

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Personally, I don't give a frac which way we end up spelling frack, but I would like to know which is the most widely used ...

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Permalink Reply by Hopeful About Natural Gas on January 7, 2012 at 12:41

Sesport ...  Yikes!  you want me to look at a link for spelling rules for dyslexics??  I only passed the literature part of English class.  I flunked all the grammer classes. But I will give it a try.  Below is Rule #5 ....

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Rule #5. The letters, k and ck are more than substitutes for c and cc. They are used to spell /k/ at the end of a monosyllable. The digraph ck, ALWAYS follows a short vowel:

          sack         duck         lick         stick         wreck         clock

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Wouldn't the alleged correct spelling be FRACK?  If Sack and Duck are spelled the way they are  (as is the 4 letter F word) then "frac" would change to "frack" by adding a K.  Isn't that right according to Rule #5?

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But, WHY???  WHY????  Why must we add the letter K to those words??  Each word still sounds and means exactly the same!  Why do we need "digraphs"?  This rule makes spelling needlessly complicated.  Frac is still pronounced phoneticlly the same as Frack and is easier to spell for the international O&G industry.

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The O&G people on GHS seem to use "frac" more in their posts.  Being dyslexic I did not notice the spelling difference until earlier today when Bacon posted an article about Fidel Castro being against shale gas a few seconds after I posted the same link.

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However, Bacon spelled it "frac" in his headline - in my headline I spelt it "frack".  It was seeing the two threads side by side with different spellings that made me start this thread to see which spelling was correct.  Bacon is a lot more knowledgeable about O&G terms than I am.

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But, the spelling of this word is still evolving - it's not even in most online dictionaries yet.  Clearly the word comes from mining and O&G work.  It's field shorthand for "fracture" and "fracturing".  Note how both those words lack a K.  So, we really don't need the K in frac to be accurate.

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When I started this thread I was used to writing "frack" in my posts.  But now, after reading the other posts I think I will side with the field workers on this one and use "frac".  It is more accurate, shorter, more historic and easier to understand by international O&G workers.

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The use of digraphs should be seriously re-evaluated.  English is the #1 business language in the world. The use of digraphs may make spelling needlessly more complicated for no good reason.  I think it's time for this rule to be tossed.  It may be out of date and hold English back as the language of daily business in the 21st Century.

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PS:  Thanks for sending the Spelling Rules from the website RFS (Reading From Scratch)  http://www.dyslexia.org/index.shtml.  However,  I found 4 very funny mistakes on their webpage.  (Sorry, we dyslexics love to catch teachers/researchers making mistakes and she makes some biggies)

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On her FAQ page she uses the word "earplug" incorrectly twice times on one page! Check it out on the FAQ page if you don't believe me.  There are two other elementary mistakes also on the same page ...

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Q. Can a student read books on tape or CD while he is in the earplugs?

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HUH???  Earplugs fit INside the ear!  Students cannot fit inside ear plugs!  Also, ear plugs are for muffling sound/noise - earphones are for hearing sound better! The correct term should be "earphone" and not "earplug".  They are two entirely different things used for two entirely opposite purposes.

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I do agree that music is helpful for dyslexics - but her limiting the musical choices to classical or rock is strictly a cultural issue.  In the 70's there was a book called Superlearning which was about the educational improvements in Bulgaria (then) when students listened to classical music. Soon people started talking about the "Mozart Effect".

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But Eastern Europeans listen to classical music much more than people in the West.  The so-called Mozart Effect failed in the west (did any parents on GHS buy one of those popular Mozart cds to help your toddler become a genius??)

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Music is cultural.  Students in Bulgaria grow up listening to classical music.  Every little village in Eastern Europe has it's own classical orchestra. But, that's not true in the West.  We might get better results using Hank Williams and Jimi Hendrix - or at least I believe we would get better results than using Mozart. It would be a great research project since musical preferences are strongly tied to an individual's culture.  It's hard to concentrate when music you don't like is playing. That's why stores use classical music to chase away loiterers.

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Please excuse my long-winded off topic diatribe on digraphs, ear plugs and music in a thread that I started to learn the correct spelling of FRAC :)

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Oh, and I still don't know ... did I understand Rule # 5 correctly?

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Permalink Reply by Hopeful About Natural Gas on January 7, 2012 at 21:12

Actually, we don't have too many years before English is streamlined.  English is the world's business language - however shortly there will be more Asian speakers of English than speakers either in America or Europe.  They will make changes to American English the same way we changed British English.  Language is the ultimate free market activity.

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We improved the Brit's language and international business people may improve ours by streamlining the English.  The language will remain the #1 language of business, but it may be as different from our English today as ours is from the florid style written in the 1800's.  I imagine that the digraph will be among the casualties.

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Thank you for the Saxon Publisher's link.  Something looks very odd about it.  Looking at that site really bothered me.  I always have this resistance when looking at grammer pages, but this time was worse than usual ...

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Then, i saw the problem of what was bugging me ... it's in the graphic that is on every single one of their pages and at the top of their student's tests.  Check out the graphic at the top of each page and read what it says ...

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"tttree ddog  zzzebra  ssshed"    "tttree ddog  zzzebra  ssshed"

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The graphic is trying to show students stuttering.  I know this is a teacher's workbook, but any student who sees that graphic will think it is making fun of their stuttering because that's what they experience everyday - and kids do see the workbooks that teachers use.  I am sure the publishers do not consciously want to poke fun at stutterers, but I don't think they have a clue how their graphics could be interpreted by many people. That was my first thought, that the publishers were making fun of dyslexics.  If I were trying to sell this program to schools that graphic would be replaced with something neutral.  Teacher's workbooks are usually out on the teacher's desk in view of everyone.

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Dyslexics will probably not see a graphic that shows a person improving their reading.  Nope. Dyslexics will see an image that appears to be making fun of them (and I know you did not select this example to make fun of me or people who stutter when reading!)

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Unfortunately, the graphics used on the pages for students are not much better.  Check out the reproductions of the student's tests on P. 6.  Notice all the capital and lower case letters in the graphic on the student's page.  Those are bound to be distracting to a student with dyslexia. He's going to be focused on the Bb, Ss, and Mm in each graphic. Seeing "Mm" will likely make a dyslexic kid think of M&M's rather than stay focused on the test.  I'd love to see a research project comparing tests scores using tests with and without these images.  I would bet that students taking tests on plain white paper would score higher compared to these pages from Saxon Publishers.  It would be a fascinating research project.

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I am very hopeful that as kids with dyslexia graduate from college and go into teaching that they will change special education from the ground up, including designing better workbook and test materials.

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Many years ago in the early 1980's I started a research business to develop new ways to teach kids with dyslexia and dyscalcula.  It did not succeed for a number of reasons. Now that I am semi retired maybe I will get back into it in some way.

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Thank you Sesport for this inspiring look into how language is developed and how we teach it to school children!  The RIT site is quite right about music's use too.  However, she needs to expand to appreciate other culture's music, even Country and Rap.

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PS:  In case anyone is still following the original thread ... I did some looking up on the web for the earliest uses of "frac" and "frack".  It looks to me like it was environmentalists who put the K in frac.  That's probable since many of them are headquartered in our universities where language rules are also kept.  Neither word is in any online dictionary that I checked.  But, the first widespread use of the word "frack" is from environmental websites that oppose fracturing.  I'll let the Free Market of Spelling decide :)

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Permalink Reply by Hopeful About Natural Gas on January 8, 2012 at 8:37

Sesport  You have helped me understand that language is the ultimate free market.  I've always believed that spelling should be a matter of individual choice (within reason) and the Frac vs Frack debate has given me a good insight into how language develops. It is not often that we have a front row seat to how a new word is integrated into the language.

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I did think of one very practical use for the digraph rule ... lately I've been seeing new grafitti using that old 4 letter F word that has a digraph was written with new spelling. At first I just thought the kids were just stupid or the schools were failing to teach proper spelling of an essential verb for human reproduction -  but the more grafiitti i see makes me think the kids are changing it as they change other spelling for text messaging.  Somehow a 3 letter word simply does not have the flair that a 4 letter word does, but the K will probably be dropped from it too. lol!

have a great day!!  It sunshine and 50 degrees on the Pacific Coast!!!

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Have you

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Permalink Reply by Hopeful About Natural Gas on January 8, 2012 at 21:31

Seasport!  YIKES, i wrote a long essay for you and then lost it hitting the wrong browser button!!  It's the modern version of THE DOG ATE MY HOMEWORK, but it really happened.

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Oh well, I will try to dredge up some of my own ideas (again) and pass them along to you.  People who think associatively have great gifts - as do people with AS or ADHD.  One of the expensive mistakes that schools make is trying to change nature - as if we were mistakes. I will always be a lousy speller and terrible in math no matter how many remideal classes I take. It is my nature - but it also frees my brain to think creatively about problems and oportunities that people who have liner brains (like my wife) completely miss.  We need to recognize the gifts that people whose brains are wired a little differently have.

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Sesport, It's been fun talking spelling with you and I hope you have a good week at work.  I greatly respect the work you do!

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-- Hopeful about Natgas!

Permalink Reply by obed w odom on January 7, 2012 at 4:21

As both are industry lingo for the proper term  "fracture" or  "fracturing", I don't know that one could say which is "correct". It seems to me though that "frac" is used more than "frack", but "fracked" and "fracking" more than "fraced" and "fracing". That may be be because the latter 2 spellings would usually be pronounced with a long "a" and soft "c", which is not the desired pronunciation.

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