I spent the first 30 of my 40 oil & gas years happily spelling the word 'frac' without a 'k' because, well, the actual word was “fracturing”. During my year as a blender tender we said things like:

“We have a frac job in the morning.”

“Who's well are we going to frac in the morning?”

“I think you’ll find the frac crew asleep in the Meno cafe.”

“We’re pumping a huge three stage frac job.”

So it was a shock to see the “k” belly flop into the lexicon, hurled out there by people who clearly hated the idea of extracting oil from the ground. Overnight the spelling was hijacked to almost look and almost sound like, well, you know.

But to use the “k” has no precedent. Consider the word “synchronize”. Which of the following is in common use?

'Sync' or 'Synck'?
'Sync'd' or 'Syncked'?

Looks ridiculous, doesn’t it? If you wrote an email, or an editorial, or a technical paper with the word 'synck', you’d risk being dismissed as a buffoon. Your work would be rejected.

In the end, I use a single yardstick with this matter: Real frac hands spell it only one way. That should be the right way.

K?