Frak (expletive)

Frack or frak is a bowdlerised version of "fuck" first used 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.cite news |work=Yahoo! News |title=What the `frak'? Faux curse seeping into language |first=Chris |last=Talbott |url=http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080902/ap_en_tv/tv_what_the_frak_1 |date=2008-09-02] 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 ("Get your motherfrakking hands off me!"), a noun ("You miserable frak") or in words ("What a clusterfrak.").

Other uses

Fräck (spelled with the umlaut ä) is also the product name of a shaving mirror produced by IKEA, a multinational home products retailer. [cite web|title=FRÄCK Mirror|publisher=Ikea.com|accessdate=2008-05-03|url=http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/38006200] Since most IKEA product names are in Swedish, "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. [cite news|title=Battlestar Galactica's Cylon Dream Kit|publisher=PC Magazine|url=http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2290393,00.asp (cited to IMDB)]

The word has recently been referenced numerous times in popular culture including in "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". "Star Wars" uses this word, but not often.http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Frack] It also appears once in the television series "Batman Beyond", in an episode titled "". And it has appeared in the "Elfquest" spinoff comic "Rebels".

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." [cite web|title=Battlestar Galactica at NY Comic-Con|publisher=scifi.com|accessdate=2008-06-20|url=http://video.scifi.com/player/?id=243188]

Frak Party

Fans of the re-imagined "Battlestar Galactica" series have come to term groups viewings of episodes as "Frak Parties". [http://blog.scifi.com/battlestar/archives/2006/09/#001323]

See also

*Phrack
*Glen A. Larson

Footnotes

References

* at the Battlestar Wiki
*"Frakking Toasters" and Jurisprudences of Technology, by Kieran Tranter, [http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1525/lal.2007.19.1.45 Law and Literature] , Spring 2007, Vol. 19, No. 1, Pages 45-7d