frac’ing
n.— «The Oil and Gas Accountability Project released a report Wednesday that lambastes an Environmental Protection Agency report, which it contends whitewashes the dangers of hydraulic fracturing.…Experts from around the country supported the findings and recommendations of the Oil and Gas Accountability Project regarding the hazards posed to underground water and human health by frac’ing as it’s called—high-pressure injection of diesel fuel or chemical-laced water to open cracks in gas-bearing rock.» —“Group disputes gas drilling method” by Dale Rodebaugh Durango Herald (Colo.) Apr. 14, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
A retronym is a word coined to distinguish something new from an older, more generic version, such as electric guitar or clock radio. A couple of new retronyms are fine water, or “unprocessed water that reflects a region’s terroir” and water...