A poll!

[telophase]

Coming from discussion on someone else's LJ. I focused on North America in detail because I think most of my readers are from North America. If you don't feel like picking a location in questions 1 or 3, just fill in the box in 2 or 4 . :)

If you just say "Frequently Asked Questions page," YOU ARE TOTALLY EXCLUDED FROM THIS POLL BECAUSE I SAY SO and because I forgot to put that option in before publishing it.

Thanks!

[Poll #1735058]

Comments

[mscongeniality.livejournal.com]

I put Northeast because I probably started pronouncing FAQ when I was in college there, but I actually live in the Mid-Atlantic in a Southern state. So...not really either the Northeast or the Southeast.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Hee!

Whenever I'm filling out survey that list "Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, Northwest" as location options, I never know where to put Texas. If they throw a "Central" in there, I usually pick that. At least some of the surveys say "West South Central" and specifically give the states that belong in it, but the four-option surveys never do.

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

Midwesterners represent, darn it all!

[estara.livejournal.com]

Addendum: sometimes I say it one way and sometimes the other.

[nekonexus.livejournal.com]

FAQ if context has already been established; otherwise F-A-Q the first time.

My workplace is also speshul and has introduced FAQt. ... No, I don't know what the fsck the "t" is for.

Related: recently read an article where the reporter was trying to sound intelligent by talking about a "sequel injection attack". I laughed. :p

[telophase.livejournal.com]

*laugh* At the previous university I worked for, the student paper once ran an article about a body found in the woods outside of town that had been transported to the medical examiner's office "in Bear County."

I could tell nobody bothered to fact-check, as that's Bexar County, home of San Antonio, pronounced "Bear" by most non-Spanish speakers.

[mindyklasky.livejournal.com]

I wonder if there's an age factor at play here. I've *never* heard anyone in my age group say "fack"; I didn't even know what you were referring to until I read the second question! (I'm in my mid-forties..., in North America Northeast, and I've worked in about a half dozen libraries doing, among other things, library website design.)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I dunno ... I'm in my early 40s doing library website design. XD I think most of my co-workers avoid saying it altogether, and outside of work I do tend to hang out with a younger crowd full of programmers and other techie people.

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

I too suspect there is not just an age factor but a cultural factor.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

I'm in the same age range as you but living on the East Coast, always spell it out in speech, social circle from about the mid-90s to mid-2000s was mostly younger and almost entirely programmers and other intensely geeky sorts. (Mind you, my next thought was "but if I'm talking with real geeks, speech itself sounds unnatural, that's what we have IRC for!")

[larryhammer]

Also a possible in-joke: "winterize the gazebo"

---L.

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

Texas is either Southeastern or Southwestern depending on which side of I35 you live.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Although the north has a lot to do with the Great Plains area, too!

One would think the survey makers would want the answers to be consistent, but that would require them to think above the level of marketing wonks.

[golden-bastet.livejournal.com]

I hate when you read a question like this... and can't remember what exactly you *do* say.

Maybe it's a sign. Maybe I'm just getting old. :( But I will put down whatever it is I think I say.

[umadoshi.livejournal.com]

For further detail, I'm in Atlantic Canada. I doubt we all say the same thing. ^_-

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Whether I say "fack" or spell it depends upon the interlocutor, mostly their age. CA.

[rayechu.livejournal.com]

I've never, ever aid or heard "fack" and also didn't know what you were even asking until I got to the second question.

[fourthage.livejournal.com]

I chose NA-Other, because the D.C. area straddles the border between your categories and really is its own special mini-region.

[kittikattie.livejournal.com]

I said both because I say one Eff-Ay-Queue and two or more Facks.

[tingirl.livejournal.com]

I say Fack, I'm from TX, and I love you for that Texas option. We ain't the South, dang it. They're mostly NORTH OF US.

I've begun using FACK! as an expletive, too, for when I or someone else has done something really stupid that could have been avoided with a little thought and/or planning. Like running into a cabinet door, or getting into an argument on the internet.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

So what counts as USA-Other besides Hawai'i and Alaska? ;)

(Although admittedly I could have gone with one of the other options based on "where you live now" vs. "where you're from", but the question phrasing just instantly set me into point-of-origin mode rather than current-domicile. I'm not from here, I just live here...)

[wyrdness.livejournal.com]

It's 1:30am and I fail at reading comprehension tonight, so I think I answered 2 when I shouldn't have, but... Meh!

I usually only say it as "fack" when I'm being silly with my housemates, such as "true fack, read it on interwebs!" when claiming something is correct/ truthful/ the way it's done without anything to back up my claim.

I think I say "Frequently Asked Questions" when properly talking about an FAQ though. Or maybe I say "have you read the website?" and wave my hand in the air as if people will telepathically pick up on what I'm on about.

[ginny-t.livejournal.com]

I've just discovered that although I think of FAQ alone as "Eff-Ay-Queue," if it's combined with something, frex, FONSFAQ on DW right now, I'm more likely to run it all into "fack" as long as that flows better. How do I decide if it flows better? Nobody knows.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Here via mme_hardy, and thinking of running a survey in linguaphiles wanna be linked to it?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Sure, thank you!

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

I didn't give you a new in-joke because the answer remains Sanzo.