A new kind of fracking

If the phonetics are similarily explosive, and the brief word begins with that sibilant sixth letter of the alphabet, then it is easy enough to understand how an innocent five-letter word can stray into the low caste pen occupied by its shunned four letter fellows.

Such is the fate these days of the new mining word, frack, very much in the news.

The headlines say that they want to frack Co Leitrim, to extract a major reservoir of shale oil buried deep beneath the fair face of the Cinderella County.