The misspelling referer originated in the original proposal by computer scientist Philip Hallam-Baker to incorporate the field into the HTTP specification.[2] The misspelling was set in stone by the time of its incorporation into the Request for Comments standards document RFC 1945; document co-author Roy Fielding has remarked that neither "referrer" nor the misspelling "referer" were recognized by the standard Unix spell checker of the period.[3] "Referer" has since become a widely used spelling in the industry when discussing HTTP referers; usage of the misspelling is not universal, though, as the correct spelling of "referrer" is used in some web specifications such as the Document Object Model.
