There are two words this season that will guarantee a newspaper traffic on its headlines: Tebow and Fracking. Fortunately, no one has attempted an all-inclusive double header.
This week I sat in an academic forum where everyone agreed that the language we use in the conversation about responsible energy production matters. We emphasized the importance of a respectful, empathetic dialogue. And yet, there was a wide disconnect.
The oil and gas industry uses the term hydraulic fracturing to refer to a specific part of the well completion process. It is a technical term referring to a specific activity. The activist community uses fracing (its correct spelling) to refer to any activity associated with oil and gas development.
This disconnect is impeding our ability to have an honest, respectful, and empathetic dialogue. We are talking past each other and using language as both weapon and shield. I’ve sat in more than one audience in the past two months where someone had a piece of paper taped to their forehead that said “Frack off” or “Frack you”. The addition of the K, once deemed clever, is now rude. “What the frack” and “no fracking way” have become clichés of the worst kind: they build walls rather than bridges to communication.
Thoughtful activists will rightly counter that the industry has used our limited definition of hydraulic fracturing to obfuscate the conversation, not addressing the broad range of concerns but rather only discussing the actual practice of hydraulic fracturing itself.
And so I propose a truce: we the industry will talk broadly about the oil and gas development process, honestly assessing your concerns and responding to them straightforwardly. And you, the thoughtful activists, will cease the use of all short forms of the term, referring instead to the phrases drilling, operations, or hydraulic fracturing, depending upon what you are interested.
My hand is extended for yours, and I look forward to a meaningful discussion. Truce?
Reader Discussion
Ms. Schuller, I just read your recent GOGA blogs and thought this piece from Ed Qullen a couple of years ago about how to spell the word ‘fracking’ was insightful. Prior to this June 2009 piece by Quillen, I had been spelling the word this way: frac’ing.
Here Quillan informs us that spelling it ‘fracing’ or ‘frac’ing; makes the word appear to rhyme with ‘tracing’ but there is standard grammatical change of inserting a ‘k” to make a gerund form of a noun that ends with a hard ‘c’, like picnicking, or trafficking…
So ‘fracking’ is grammatically sound.
It’s up to the industry itself to understand the public’s jargon, and since most if not all wells are fracked, most of the public have chosen to use that word as shorthand for all aspects of drilling. To get a ‘truce’ as you seek, your side needs to mimic the public as the body politic is too diffuse and unscripted to use these words as industry insiders would prefer.
Wes Wilson, Be The Change
Tisha,
I just read your appeal to thoughtful activists. Both your truce proposal and the discussion about the language we use are on target.