Talk:FAQ

"a FAQ" vs. "an F.A.Q."

I have seen both "a FAQ" and "an FAQ" recently. Since this article says FAQ is normally pronounced fack and F is not a vowel, may I suggest we endeavour to stick to "a FAQ"? -- SGBailey 08:01 Dec 17, 2002 (UTC)

There is no standard pronunciation. Some people think "F. A. Q." sounds too long or technical. Some people think "fack" sounds too much like a vulgarity. USENET is a textual medium, where people type words rather than pronouncing them, so there is not too much surprise that there are different pronunciations. The English article (a/an) depends on pronunciation of the following sound -- which is why some say "a historical moment" and others say "an historical moment" -- so it isn't going to be settled. --FOo

I've seen many people outside of the internet using FAQ exclusively as F.A.Q., and thus put my name down as a supporter of "an FAQ" over "a FAQ". 'Fack' sounds too close to another four-letter word beginning with f, and fax.

The introduction now mentions the punctuation (and choice-of-article) ambiguity. Steve Summit (talk) 04:36, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I never worried about "fak" sounding vulgar, but when speaking about plural FAQ (which is more often the case these days) it tends to get confused with "fax" or "facts." I've noticed long time users of "fak" moving to "F. A. Q." because less tech-savvy co-workers get mixed up. Durty Willy 03:47, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's also interesting to consider USENET FAQs as a textual tradition, genre, or form, much as "encyclopedias" or "sonnets" or "midrashim" are. There are things which are common in an FAQ aside from just questions and answers. For instance, definitions of commonly used terms, descriptions of officially unsettled topics (or those likely to provoke flamewars), and for that matter an authoritative tone which -- while it might not be NPOV, often tries to sound like it! --FOo

change title to "FAQ List"?

Once upon a time, "FAQ" tended to refer to a single frequently-asked question, and a set of them was an "FAQ List". The article mentions this, but I'm wondering if the main title should be "FAQ List", with the obvious redirect from "FAQ". Opinions? Steve Summit (talk) 04:36, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know. I remeber a lot of usage of "FAQ list" but that doesn't seem to be seen very often these days. Instead, FAQ becomes pluralized into "FAQs," which seems pretty much covered by the current article, as disjointed as it is right now. Durty Willy 03:50, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What about the answers?

Sure, FAQs are a list of the questions, but where are the answers? How about Frequently Asked Questions and Answers? FAQA? I'm mostly joking but I do remember going to one site that had a FAQ with no answers, because it wasn't a 'FAQA'. --DevastatorIIC 00:29, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

no Abby

Deleted the line "The newspaper "help" columns of "Ann Landers" and "Dear Abby" can be considered in the style of the (Q&A) format", since simply answering questions isn't the same as a FAQ-- in fact, it is pretty much the opposite of a FAQ, since the idea of FAQ is to provide a source so people can just go to the source, and not bother experts with frequently asked questions. Geoffrey.landis 14:57, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FAQ=*****!

I Have Just Noticed that if you say -FAQ- You would say [I don`t mean to swear] F*** u. SORRY.