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It bothers me more than it should when people pronounce sql as sequel.

Comments
  • 4
    would you really rather say "Microsoft ess cue ell server"?
  • 13
    @CrashOverride no:

    My Ass cue ell.
  • 1
    @Letmecode It never "meant" sequel, that's just a convenient way to pronounce it. I mean it saves a syllable. I always liked it, I don't see the big deal. It's like SCSI. You wouldn't want to pronounce that "ess see ess eye" would you?
  • 0
    @Letmecode I can't tell if you're being facetious, but SCSI is conventionally pronounced "scuzzy".
  • 0
    …or was. Not like anyone uses SCSI anymore.
  • 1
    sequ... TRIGGERED
  • 0
    @Letmecode Actually I think what you really want to google is the difference between acronym and initialism.
  • 0
    @Letmecode Oh it's completely subjective. I don't think anyone can claim there are grammatical rules at play here; it's purely a matter of personal preference. I've always liked word pronunciations because for one they're usually easier to say, and for two it's an insider thing. Usually when I hear someone pronounce it "ess cue ell" I think to myself they're not in the know.
  • 3
    Pronouncing things another way than its written is really annoying. SQL, SCSI and GIF (had to do it) for example.
    Some people are completely self taught. They just read it.

    I once got an interview question "what is your experience with sequel?" I said that I didnt even had a clue what it was.

    Guess what I do know what S Q L is. Never heard the term sequal before. Guess who didnt get the job?
  • 1
    @Codex404 I can see why you have strong feelings towards them! But I think it's fair to say that's a good example of why you should learn them, whether you like them or not.

    There are certain ones I can't stand too. For instance I will absolutely never use the word "mebibyte". To me, 1024 kilobytes is a megabyte. End of story. But I still know of its existence so I know what people mean if I do happen to hear it.

    That being said, I think not hiring someone because they don't know the pronunciation of an acronym is a bit harsh.
  • 1
    I pronounce it sequel. I wonder who else I've annoyed...
  • 0
    My c quel
  • 0
    But "struhqueerlang" is such a mouthful...
  • 1
    How do you pronounce ASCII?
  • 6
  • 2
    For anyone who needed this. I'll show myself out now.
  • 0
    @ocwjay it goes a little deeper than that. It was originally SEQUEL and was then changed to SQL. BUT, while all are now written SQL, some flavours are officially pronounced sequel, while others s q l. Microsoft SQL server is pronounced sequel, but MySQL is pronounced my s q l (although they don't mind you pronouncing it my sequel, according to their documentation). So for any specific implementation you have to check the documentation, but the language itself is pronounced s q l so the sentence "I'm writing an SQL query on Microsoft SQL server" would correctly be pronounced as "I'm writing an s q l query on Microsoft sequel server".
  • 0
    I stand corrected. I didn't realize it originally had "English" in the name.
  • 1
    @Bikonja That's nice to know!
  • 1
    @DonMcCoy Agreed, Not A, S, C, I, I
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