Recently, a client asked me to make a change to her site to make the FAQ link reach FAQs. This is a very interesting request as it prompted me to think about what FAQs actually meant. After all, TLA (three letter acronyms) are really short abbreviations for stuff we talk about regularly but don’t want to have to say over and over. Used on the web, they make a long phrase shorter.

In this case, FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions. So does that mean that FAQs actually stands for Frequently Asked Questionss? I know, looks absurd. But that’s what it is. And unless someone’s business, site, etc. was incredibly obvious and simple, it wouldn’t make sense that anyone would have a Frequently Asked Question. That’s the only way FAQs would make sense.

So, how’d it get this way? I mean afterall, FAQs is a fairly common reference on the web. Having worked with a number of programmers over the years, they are less concerned with content and more concerned with functionality. But, often they must generate content initially to create the functionality (sometimes foobar or foobar1, foobar2, etc. just doesn’t cut it all). So in order to do their job they enter some text and continue writing the code around it. FAQs makes total sense when you are in a hurry and don’t really thing about it. However, I’ve seen far too many editorial types turn my TN and CO into Tenn. and Colo. because they adhere to some antiquated style guide to believe they miss it.

Could it be the Internet and programmers have just created a phenomenon where some misuse repeated over and over across thousands of sites has actually changed the mindset of those who proofread?