I know, I know, tomato-tomato, but I’ve had people tell me I say it wrong when said each way, which has left me rather confused, so I decided to do some research and figure out how SQL is actually pronounced. SQL is the language used for querying and managing data in a relational database system. Some people say S-Q-L and some people say “sequel”. This difference in pronunciation also effects the writing of documentation. The indefinite article that’s used before the term (a or an) is based on how it’s pronounced (try saying “a SQL” and “an SQL”). No one wants to sound ignorant, so which way is correct? It turns out they’re both correct/acceptable, but that the S-Q-L way of saying it is more “official”.

SQL was initially developed at IBM by Donald Chamberlin and Raymond Boyce. It was initially called “Structured English Query Language” (SEQUEL) and pronounced “sequel”, though it later had to have it’s name shortened to “Structured Query Language” (SQL) due to trademark issues. It was created to supplant the then popular QUEL database language, and the name “sequel” was meant as a pun (it was the sequel to QUEL) [1]. However, this leads to the big question – was language still called “sequel” after the name change?

If you look at Oracle’s official documentation on SQL, it says it’s still pronounced “sequel” [2]. However, if you look at MySQL’s official documentation, it says “MySQL” is officially pronounced “‘My Ess Que Ell’ (not ‘my sequel’)” [3], and Wikipedia says SQL is officially pronounced “S-Q-L” and references an O’Reilly book on the subject [4]. So this is no help, the major sources aren’t agreeing on the way it’s “officially” pronounced.

Then a thought occurred to me: SQL was created in the 70′s, the creators are probably techies, I can probably just email them and ask them how it’s pronounced! Ray Boyce had passed away at a young age, but Don Chamberlin was alive and now teaching at a university. I felt a little silly, but I decided to fire off a short email to him:

Hello Don,

I’m sorry to waste your time with such a silly question, but I’ve often heard SQL pronounced S-Q-L or as Sequel. I’ve also seen the official pronunciation listed both ways. According to wikipedia, you and Raymond Boyce created the language and it was shortened to SQL after some legal dispute. So my question is, is there an official pronunciation to SQL? Thank you for your time.

- Pat

To my delight, he replied back:

Hi Pat,

Since the language was originally named SEQUEL, many people continued to pronounce the name that way after it was shortened to SQL. Both pronunciations are widely used and recognized. As to which is more “official”, I guess the authority would be the ISO Standard, which is spelled (and presumably pronounced) S-Q-L.

Thanks for your interest,

I felt a little dumb wasting his time with such a goofy question, but I was thrilled he replied back. Later I would find out that he himself pronounces it as “sequel” [5], so it’s interesting he would be so unbiased, though I suppose his pronunciation is consistent with him noting that the original guys kept calling it “sequel”. With this I felt I had found my answer: Both were acceptable, though the standard indicated S-Q-L was probably more official.

I don’t have any plans to be that guy and start correcting people who say “sequel”, though now I feel I can at least defend saying S-Q-L if someone tries to correct me. Additionally, while this may seem like a really trivial matter, some people seem to take it rather seriously. On a thread at Oracle’s message forum, a DBA who pronounces it “sequel” mentioned that “I’ve rejected interviewees because they didn’t know how to pronounce SQL … If you can’t pronounce it correctly, then I have doubts as to your ability to use it correctly.” [6] Though then again, the Oracle community seems to have adopted the “sequel” way of saying it, so maybe adapting to whatever environment you’re in is the best policy. Whatever the case, knowing why it’s said one way or another can useful.

[1] http://www.ibphoenix.com/resources/documents/design/doc_123
[2] http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B10501_01/server.920/a96540/intro.htm
[3] http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17952_01/refman-5.1-en/what-is-mysql.html
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sql
[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghxpXpTuALM#t=33m23s
[6] https://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=630585&start=15&tstart=0

Photo By Zach Klein

So my boss came into my office on Friday and off handily asked me if “Stacy” was more of a boy’s name, or more of a girl’s name. I immediately thought “piece of cake!” and brought up my Baby Naming Trends Tool, only to be really confused that there was no feature for determining this. “Wait, I remember programming this feature last Fall, where is it?” I thought. Then I remembered I had waited to push the update out until I finished a couple of other features (which remain unfinished). D’oh!

Since male vs female feature was kind of fun, I decided cut out the unfinished functionality (for now), and push out the update so users could query the data. Now you can see if names are more popular for girls or for guys. Just place a “m:” or “f:” before a name when you enter it in. Here are some examples of names commonly given to both boys and girls:

• Casey – Very close, more male leaning though.
• Jordan – More male leaning.
• Mackenzie – More female leaning.
• Pat – A nick name, but popular with female babies in the 30′s and 40′s (though it’s almost no longer used). Patrick and Patti are more popular.
• Quinn – More female leaning.
• Riley – More males, but trending towards more females.
• Stacy – More female leaning.
• Taylor – More female leaning.

However, when creating this feature, I noticed some interesting abnormalities. No popular names seemed to be 100% male or female, even names that were obviously male or female. For example, according to the data, 11 females were named John in 2010, and during its peak popularity, when 80,000 males a year were being named John, the data says 200-300 females a year were being named John. Even though that means only ~0.375% of John’s were female, it still seems bizarre that someone would name a baby girl “John”. I wondered if this was a mistake on my part, but the underlying data showed the numbers to be correct.

The idea that someone would give a baby girl or boy a name of the opposite sex isn’t too far fetched, I know a few guys with names more commonly associated with girls, but are there really hundreds of guys named Jennifer walking around in the US? I accept that there may be a hand full, but my guess for the real reason this anomaly appears is because nurses or doctors sometimes make mistakes when recording the data. That makes me a little sad, but I suppose any data that’s hand recorded is going to have some errors. Though if this is the case, since this data comes from the US Social Security website, does this mean that these people may have their sex incorrectly recorded on their birth certificate? Though then again, perhaps people give a name for their baby, but then change it when it’s born and they find out it’s a different sex. Or then again, maybe there are lots of male Jennifers out there. Whatever the case, it makes for an interesting blip in the data.

Keyboard Layout Analyzer Update

I’ve rewritten the Keyboard Layout Analyzer. Back in November I told a guy I was close to being done and would have a new version up in “2 weeks”. I then told two other people in December who asked for additional features that I’d have it up in “2 weeks”. I now feel a little bit like a jack ass, but I honestly have been really busy. My new plan is to simply put up a preview version soon. The new app is mostly done, but rough around the edges in the output department.