FAQ

Frequently asked questions (FAQ) or Questions and Answers (Q&A), are listed questions and answers, all supposed to be commonly asked in some context, and pertaining to a particular topic. The format is commonly used on email mailing lists and other online forums, where certain common questions tend to recur.

"FAQ" is pronounced as either an initialism (F-A-Q) or an acronym. Since the acronym FAQ originated in textual media, its pronunciation varies; "F-A-Q",and "fack", are commonly heard. Depending on usage, the term may refer specifically to a single frequently asked question, or to an assembled list of many questions and their answers. Web page designers often label a single list of questions as a "FAQ", such as on Google.com, while using "FAQs" to denote multiple lists of questions such as on United States Treasury sites.

Origins

While the name may be recent, the FAQ format itself is quite old. For instance, Matthew Hopkins wrote The Discovery of Witches in 1647 as a list of questions and answers, introduced as "Certaine Queries answered". Many old catechisms are in a question-and-answer (Q&A) format. Summa Theologica, written by Thomas Aquinas in the second half of the 13th century, is a series of common questions about Christianity to which he wrote a series of replies. Plato's dialogues are even older.