Something American-- Fracking

"Fracking rules go under review." Normally, when I see a word like this, I assume it's just another substitute for the f-word, as in frigging, freaking, fugging, etc. But there it was -- a headline on the front page of the Durango Herald. Southwest Colorado is a big oil-and-gas drilling area, and fracking is a field word for "hydraulic fracturing." It's an environmentally questionable way of getting natural gas out of the ground. From the Durango Herald: "Fracking fluids are usually a mixture of water, sand and various chemicals that blow open fissures in rock formations to let natural gas flow up to the well." I can't find it in my bfd (big fat dictionary), but it's made its way into state and county governments as well as the oil and gas fields. (Etymology of fracture: Middle English from Old French from Latin fractura, from fractus, past participle of frangere, to break.) This is not to be confused with fragging, coined during the war in Vietnam, which was about killing (one's fellow soldier) by throwing a fragmentation grenade, (hence, fragging) or simply shooting the person in the back. War is worse than we can imagine.