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Comment by hodgesrm | Hacker News Reader

MySQL pronunciation can be "My S Q L" or "My Sequel." I think most people in the community probably use the latter, but truthfully most of us don't really care. The "S Q L" vs. "Sequel" split has existed almost as long as SQL itself. The original name for the language was "SEQUEL." [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL#History

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What’s better is that “My” has nothing to do with possession, and it’s pronounced “Me”: it’s Widenius’ daughters name[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Widenius

Well, as a Swedish speaker I will respectfully disagree with your pronunciation. To my ears the the y is not like the e in me, but I can't think of a good English equivalent.

(in fact, the girls name actually sounds like the greek letter "mu" as it's spelled and pronounced in Swedish)

The database can also be pronounced MyS-QL ("mys-kul").

It's not right of course.

Where/how might I find a good pronunciation reference that would cover this construct/use?

English equivalents not necessary; I don't mind picking the appropriate tidbit out of a fragment of speech in a video for example.

I could just as easily stare at an IPA pronunciation for a bit too.

I thought finding a source with pronunciation would be easy, but it was surprisingly difficult, and I kinda gave up finding a source appropriate for English speakers.

The name “My” is not unheard of in danish and we also have a word “my”, for very small measures, with the same pronunciation. It should be close enough the the Swedish pronunciation for your purpose.

Here is an entry in a danish dictionary. Click the yellow speaker for pronunciation:

https://ordnet.dk/ddo/ordbog?query=My&tab=for

Thanks very much for taking the time, and for the reference. To my ears that sounds like a subtle cross between classical "e" as in present-tense "read" and "i" as in "pin" or "Linux".

Hrm, now to start saying "MeSQL" and seeing what happens...

And "MariaDB" was named after another of his daughters.

If memory serves, he also has a son (whose name I can't remember) after which he named some other piece of software (which I also can't remember).

All of this is almost certainly mentioned in that link you shared although, at the moment, I just can't be bothered to click it.

Max: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MaxDB

That guy has to make more kids if he wants to open any new projects...

FWIW, much like a linguistic accent or regional dialect, using "sequel" tends to make you sound more like a Microsoft developer (definitely to people from my generation). This has been merging a bit in the last decade (mostly as the linguistic traditions of subcultures in general have been eroding from Eternal September and an entire generation passing), but it is still notable enough that people bring it up occasionally.

The MS pronunciation makes sense to me. Microsoft inherited (actually bought) SQL Server from Sybase. At Sybase the pronunciation was 100% "Sequel." I worked there for 7 years and don't ever recall hearing "S Q L."

I pronounced the individual letters until I called Microsoft support one day and the automated prompts said something like "For Microsoft 'Sequel' Server, press 3".

Now I'm genuinely curious what the modern equivalent of education by phone menu might be.

There's just so much information *everywhere* that we just aren't in isolated little universes anymore.

> what the modern equivalent of education by phone menu might be.

Podcasts and video, whether it's official company presentations or not.

I once received a document from an offshore DBA who had written 'seagull' for every instance of 'SQL' because that's what he thought was being said on conference calls.

Personally I cut it down the middle and go with 'squill' but then I always said 'scizzy' instead of 'scuzzy' for SCSI.

The original intent was for SCSI to be pronounced ‘sexy’, but you can't always get what you want.

A DBA who didn't pick up that it was 'SQL' being said after the first couple times? :(

Probably a DB2 dba.. to them all other platforms may as well have been made by seagulls.

I read once that somebody pronounced SQL as 'squeal' which leads to mysql being pronounced as 'my-squeal'.

Rightly or wrongly, I prefer that pronunciation too. It's less cumbersome.

Yes, it's often pronounced that way in my circle of friends, as a way of bashing MySQL, after all, it makes one squeal in terror. Although this started in the late 90s, back when MySQL was pretty awful. These days it's pretty decent.

My non-computer-programmer mom once pronounced SQL as "squirrel" which I think is even better.

> The official way to pronounce “MySQL” is “My Ess Que Ell” (not “my sequel”), but we do not mind if you pronounce it as “my sequel” or in some other localized way.

https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/what-is-mysql.html

There's an equivalent page in the SqlServer docs somewhere that recommends SequelServer as the idiomatic pronunciation.

I pronounce each of them idiomatically. When saying SQL I tend to say S-Q-L unless I'm around people who tend to say Sequel, in which case I say it that way. Most people I meet in person also tend to say S-Q-L, presumably because that is how it is written.

According to a book I read years ago, some people pronounce it "Squirrel", but I've never personally met one.

> According to a book I read years ago, some people pronounce it "Squirrel", but I've never personally met one.

Interesting. Adding to that, MQTT is pronounced as Mosquitto.

The "squirrel" point in your comment was really confusing, it didn't sound like SQL to me at all.

Until I realised that you probably mean the American pronunciation of "squirrel" that sounds something like "skwerl"? I grew up calling the animal a "skwi-rull" :)

Still confused about where the “r” would come from.

I've been in the "sequel" camp, but that changes now. I'm not passing up the opportunity to talk to co-workers about "my squirrel".

For it is furry, and will eat your nuts for breakfast.

The first time I used MySQL the person showing me referred to it as "my squall" so that is always what I think when I see it read. I generally pronounce it 'my ess-que-ell' myself though.

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