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Poll: How do you pronounce SQL
Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 6:02 pm
by Stryks
For some reason, I've always just called it S.Q.L and assumed everyone else did the same.
But recently I've been working in a new environment and I heard the phrase 'sequel' thrown around. Took me a sec to figure out what they were meaning. Luckly I fought the urge to ask.
So how about it? How do you pronounce it in conversation? S.Q.L or sequel.
(note: if you happen to say sequel, then what do you call mySQL? Mysequel? - Just curious)
Re: Poll: How do you pronounce SQL
Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 6:28 pm
by jayshields
Sequel was something IBM developed before SQL came out, that's why people get mixed up. SQL is pronounced ess-que-ell.
Wikipedia clears everything up.
Re: Poll: How do you pronounce SQL
Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 6:28 pm
by alex.barylski
A and B but usually I pronounce it sequel...I'm willing to bet ONE MILLION DOLLARS this has been asked before.

Re: Poll: How do you pronounce SQL
Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 10:57 am
by idevlin
S.Q.L.
Many years ago I used SQLBase and SQLWindows, which were produced by Gupta. They were both pronounced Sequel Base and Sequel Windows. But I always felt that was very wrong!

Re: Poll: How do you pronounce SQL
Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 11:26 am
by onion2k
Depends who I'm talking to. Non-techy people tend to get "S.Q.L.", technical people get "sequel".
The tricky one is how you pronounce "Postgresql".
Re: Poll: How do you pronounce SQL
Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 12:22 pm
by RobertGonzalez
EssCueEll when talking about the Structured Query Language, commands passed to a database and queries. When talking to my DBAs I call it sequel because that is how my DBAs refer to it. When talking to other developers it is generally EssCueEll.
This holds true for MySQL as well.
As for Postgresql I have always pronounced it PostGraySequel. Not sure why the Sequel bit in there as opposed to SQL.
And for the record I began pronouncing it as EssCueEll from the go because it never entered my head to pronounce it sequel.
Re: Poll: How do you pronounce SQL
Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 12:23 pm
by RobertGonzalez
And PS, I added an option of Both Ways for you, since there are more than me that have said they do that.
Re: Poll: How do you pronounce SQL
Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 1:02 pm
by idevlin
Everah wrote:And for the record I began pronouncing it as EssCueEll from the go because it never entered my head to pronounce it sequel.
Same here

Re: Poll: How do you pronounce SQL
Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 8:02 pm
by Stryks
Everah wrote:And for the record I began pronouncing it as EssCueEll from the go because it never entered my head to pronounce it sequel.
Well, that's exactly why it threw me to hear it referred to as sequel. Never occurred to me that it would ever be called that.
Weird thing is, I have NEVER heard it referred to as sequel in all my years in various positions (including a data center) until I came in contact with the guys I am currently working with. They are extremely Microsoft-centric and I had wondered if that was where it came from. Funnily enough, I haven't yet heard it used by anyone in the tech side of the business.
Maybe one of the big nobbs said it and everyone carried it on to look good to the boss. Maybe they had he same moment of 'what the ... ' I did.
Re: Poll: How do you pronounce SQL
Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 4:19 am
by alex.barylski
Weird how some acronyms get pronounced and others not...
CMS I pronounce as a acronym...CAPTCHA I pronounce as a word. ASP, PHP, HTML are other examples which do not get pronounced...yet SQL is usually sequel
ADO I pronounce as a word...PDO I pronounce as an acronym...MVC an acronym and so on...crazy

Re: Poll: How do you pronounce SQL
Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 4:43 am
by onion2k
I think you need to look up 'acronym' in a dictionary. It doesn't mean what you think it means.
Re: Poll: How do you pronounce SQL
Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 6:09 am
by jayshields
Everah wrote:As for Postgresql I have always pronounced it PostGraySequel. Not sure why the Sequel bit in there as opposed to SQL.
Never really thought about it because I've never said it aloud but when I think of Postgresql I think of "PostGres Q.L.".
Re: Poll: How do you pronounce SQL
Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 8:08 am
by dml
Hockey wrote:Weird how some acronyms get pronounced and others not...
CMS I pronounce as a acronym...CAPTCHA I pronounce as a word. ASP, PHP, HTML are other examples which do not get pronounced...yet SQL is usually sequel
I was listening to a recording of a security presentation by Chris Shiflett, and I got very worried when he started talking about seasurf attacks, which I'd never heard of, and then as I continued listening I started thinking that these seasurf attacks were very similar to CSRF attacks, and it took me a few more minutes for it even to occur to me that they were the same thing.
As far as I know, there's no standards committee for pronunciation, so it's a matter of usage within a community. I've never heard a Microsoft person pronounce SQL Server as anything other than Sequel Server, and I've never heard a Mysql person say anything other than My S.Q.L. But there are a lot of technical terms I've never actually heard pronounced - I don't speak to security experts, I only read their blogs, so I don't know if CSRF is spelt out or pronounced "seasurf", in the same way as I don't know if the word "hegemony" has a hard or a soft "g".
Sometimes, spelling it out isn't wrong, but it's also not wrong to acronymize it for brevity. If you're Chris Shiflett, and you have to say "CSRF" a hundred times a day, you save a lot of time by cutting it down from four syllables to two. I was working for a phone company where we didn't talk about somebody's phone number, we talked about their MSISDN, and since it can get very tiring for such a frequently used concept to have six syllables, so a lot of people pronounced it "mizdun".
Re: Poll: How do you pronounce SQL
Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 11:19 am
by Jonah Bron
When you type 'sequel', do you mean pronunciation to be like 'the sequel of a book', or like S (as in the sound snakes make) COO (as in the first part of the word 'cool') and then just L (like the sound L makes, not literally EL)?
Re: Poll: How do you pronounce SQL
Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 11:29 am
by RobertGonzalez
Sequel, as in the next in the line of things, VS SQL, EssCueEll.