Frak (expletive)

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A vanity plate displaying the revised spelling

Frak is a minced oath version of "fuck" first used (with the spelling "frack") in the original Battlestar Galactica series. In the "re-imagined" version it appears with greater frequency and with the revised spelling "frak", as the producers wanted to make it a four-letter word.^[1] In that framework it seems to function as a substitute for "fuck" in several different forms, as an interjection ("Frak!"), inquisitive idiom ("What the frak?"), verb ("You're not still frakking Dualla are you?"), adjective ("You frakking, crazy idiot!"), a noun ("You miserable frak") or in compound words ("What a clusterfrak.").

[edit] Other uses

"Frak" is used in the same sense as in Battlestar by characters in the "Ciaphas Cain" series of Warhammer 40k novels by Sandy Mitchell, probably like an expression from his unknown birth world.

Fräck (spelled with the umlaut ä) is also the product name of a shaving mirror produced by IKEA, a multinational home products retailer.^[2] Most IKEA product names are in Swedish, and fräck is the Swedish word for audacious, shameless or bold (while frack, without ä, would translate to tailcoat). In the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series, a mirror of this type is installed in the cabin of William Adama.^[3]

Frak is a Dutch word for a long coat for men, not often used anymore in the Netherlands, but still commonly used in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium, used for all sorts of coats, both for men and women.^[4]

In the Czech language and Polish language, the word frak (pronounced the same way as written, with hard "r" and phonetic "ʌ") stands for a tailcoat (a black coat with coat-tails).

Frakk is the most ordinary word used in west Scandinavia meaning a coat for both men or women.

Fracking (also "fracing") may refer to hydraulic fracturing of oil or gas wells, in which a slurry of sand and chemicals is injected into the rock formation at high pressure. The fracking fluid weakens and fractures the surrounding rock, making it more permeable and thus easier to pump the oil or gas from the well. However, use of fracking chemicals^{[fn 1]} have been blamed for environmental pollution and serious illness such as cancer.^[5]

The word has recently been referenced numerous times in popular culture including in Dollhouse, Better Off Ted, Scrubs, 30 Rock, Dilbert, Veronica Mars, Gilmore Girls, Robot Chicken, the English dub of Crayon Shin Chan, The OC, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, the Gaunt's Ghosts novel series and in Marvel Comics' World War Hulk: Prologue.^[1] The Star Wars extended universe uses this word, but not often.^{[fn 2]} It also appears once in the television series Batman Beyond, in an episode titled "Final Cut". And it has appeared in the Elfquest spinoff comic Rebels. Spelt 'Frack', the word is used in the 30th century-set DC comic series Legion of Super Heroes.

The Outside Agency has a song named "frack" which samples Battlestar Galactica.

During the Battlestar Galactica panel at the 2008 New York Comic Con, SCI FI Channel programming executive Mark Stern had this to say about the word: "The thing is, they've done so much with that word, it's almost like, beyond. I just was reading a script the other day that had gagglefrak in it. Gagglefrak. Okay, I think you're done, if you're at gagglefrak."^[6]

[edit] Frak Party

Fans of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series have come to term group viewings of episodes as "Frak Parties".^[1][7]

[edit] See also

• Glen A. Larson
• Profanity in Science Fiction

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] References