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If hydraulic fracturing is the stick that can break through stone, why would the word "fracking" ever hurt the industry that practices it?

On Tuesday, The Associated Press released an update to its newspaper industry-standard Stylebook, this time including an entry for hydraulic fracturing:

"A technique used by the energy industry to extract oil and gas from rock by injecting high-pressure mixtures of water, sand or gravel and chemicals. The short form is fracking, a term considered pejorative by the industry."

In other words, go ahead and call it fracking because that's what it's called, but the industry won't like it when you do.

AP energy writer Jonathan Fahey introduced the world to this linguistic concern in January, in a story that began with "A different kind of F-word ..." Yeah, one that ends in a "k," no less. So what?

"It's a co-opted word and a co-opted spelling used to make it look as offensive as people can try to make it look," an official with Chesapeake Energy, the nation's second-largest natural gas producer, told Fahey.

The co-opting culprits are environmentalists who think fracking is bad for the environment and who use the terminology in graphic wordplay to make their point. I'd rather not give examples. I'll also refrain from using "fracking" adjectivally. By now, the comedic shock value is about as new and original as "take my wife, please."

Overlooked in this invented conundrum is that the co-opting had to be done from something or someone. And that something and someone is the industry itself.

The first time I can remember hearing the word, and having the process explained to me, was a couple of years ago on a well pad deep in the South Texas brush. The consultant in charge of the drilling project was doing the talking, and in his way of telling, it was fracking, aka hydraulic fracturing, not the other way around like the AP Stylebook explains it. He said "frack" a lot you know how those guys working the rigs talk. He never blushed, nor did he apologize for using what his industry now considers a pejorative.

His explanation, by the way, was easy for this science- and math-challenged journalism major to follow. Neither the industry nor the engineering profession could have found a better ambassador. Forcing him to change his choice of words would be a tactical blunder.

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TOM WHITEHURST JR.: Overly hyped and hydraulically fractured