Frak (expletive)

Frak or frack is a fictional version of "fuck" first used in the 1978 Battlestar Galactica television series. It continues to be used throughout different versions of the Battlestar Galactica franchise and, more generally, as a profanity in science fiction.

A vanity plate displaying the revised spelling

Etymology

"Frak" is a fictional censored version of "fuck" first used in the 1978 Battlestar Galactica series (with the spelling "frack"). In the "re-imagined" version, and subsequently in Caprica, it appears with greater frequency and with the revised spelling "frak", as the producers wanted to make it a four-letter word.[1] It occurs as an expletive and in expressions such as "fraks things up good" and "frakking toasters".[2]

Other uses

"Frak!" was the title of a game released on the BBC Micro B and Acorn Electron in 1984, and later the Commodore 64. The game saw the user controlling a caveman called Trogg, who had to navigate maze-like scenarios and dispose of deadly obstacles; when coming into contact with such an obstacle or falling a substantial distance, Trogg would cry "Frak!"

"Frak" is used in the same sense as in Battlestar by characters in the early 21st century "Ciaphas Cain" series of Games Workshop Warhammer 40,000 novels by Sandy Mitchell.[3]

"Frak" is also used in the same sense as in Battlestar several times in the Warner Bros. / DC Comics television series Arrow. Specifically by the characters Felicity Smoak, Curtis Holt, and Mia Queen. An example can be seen in the season four episode "Lost in the Flood" at 22:05.

A campaign in the United Kingdom aimed at banning hydraulic fracturing, the controversial method of shale gas extraction commonly known as fracking, have organised themselves under the name Frack Off.

References
  1. Talbott, Chris (September 2, 2008). "What the 'frak'? Faux curse seeping into language". Associated Press.
  2. Tranter, Kieran (Spring 2007). "Frakking Toasters and Jurisprudences of Technology" (PDF). Law and Literature. 19 (1): 45–7d. doi:10.1525/lal.2007.19.1.45. hdl:10072/19459.
  3. Mitchell, Sandy (2003). For the Emperor (extract) (PDF). Black Library. p. 13. ISBN 978-1-84416-050-1. OCLC 52946642. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 18, 2006.
  • Frak at the Battlestar Wiki
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