Scipio wrote: "Sorry old chap but frac and fraccing are well established mining terminology used every day in the mining industry, they are not slang words"
Sorry, ol' bean, you lost me. In one sentence you use the words "frac" and "fraccing", then you go on, in another sentence, to explain what "fracture" means.
"Fraccing" and "frac" are indeed slang words, as used by certain groups of people whom work in a particular industry. There is no need for individuals outside of those groups, nor for insiders, when speaking to the rest of the community, to use those terms.
Check out some online dictionaries, they sometimes cite slang words. But they all seem to return no result. Even "Urban dictionary" does not return a result : fraccing
So, it must be used by a very, very small percentage of people. Just for the record, I have (briefly) worked on an oil drilling rig, and in a gold mine, but have never heard anyone use the terms "fraccing" or "frac" before I came to HotCopper. I can, therefore, only assume that they are terms used by Texas oil men. If I used the language from the industry I work in, then no-one here would understand me. So I therefore choose to write standard Australian-English.
I simply find it annoying when a director of a company uses slang terms in a announcement that is addressed to the general public.
