6:1 fracking

 Where & When: The word fracking has appeared frequently in my news articles that pop up on my home page. After seeing this article, I have decided it's time to investigate.

During hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," millions of gallons of high-pressure, chemical-laden water are pumped into an underground geologic formation (the Barnett Shale, in the case of northern Texas) to free up oil. But once fractures have been opened up in the rock and the water pressure is allowed to abate, internal pressure from the rock causes fracking fluids to rise back to the surface, becoming what the natural gas industry calls "flowback," according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Definition: The word is defined in context. Fracking means hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing is when millions millions of gallons of high-pressure, chemical-laden water are pumped into an underground geologic formation to free up oil. 

In Context: To help solve problems with the oil crisis, the crew flew to Alaska to do some fracking  in the lands of the wild.

Level of Familiarity: I have see the word plenty of times before. It always pops up on Yahoo news in news titles. But that is the extent to my exposure to the word.

Reflective Commentary: This word has haunted me for a long time. I always see it and wonder, what does fracking mean? For a while I thought it had to do with the government. Clearly I was wrong. The word interests me because it keeps showing up as a misspelled word. Word check thinks I mean 'racking' or 'tracking.' This leads me to believe it is a newer term and has not reach popularity or complete acceptance yet. I know Wikipedia is a unreliable source but my options to learning the origin of the term were small. And Wikipedia does a wonderful job of simplifying concepts for me. From Wikipedia I learned that fracking was first used in 1947. This brings me to wonder why it shows up as a misspelling still, and 50+ years. Interestingly the concept of fracking dates back to the 1860's. According to Wikipedia, "fracturing as a method to stimulate shallow, hard rock oil wells dates back to the 1860s." In other words this concept existed for 150+ years. Why is still showing up as a misspelling? Now this word greatly interested me because of the circumstance of why I had so many lines on the page. Should we know this? Maybe. If you want to use a big word when discussing hydraulic fracturing. But the odds of that happening are not very slim. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fracking