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Comment by Minor49er | Hacker News Reader

Just for fun, I looked at how 20 different people pronounced MySQL. The results:

  "My Sequel": 12
  "My Ess Kyoo El": 8
  "My Squirrel": 0

I thought "My Sequel" would have something closer to 2/3rds of results rather than 1/2

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I'm surprised it's the majority at all. It's so weird that people insert imaginary vowels to try to pronounce it as if it were a word.

I think there are two main reasons:

- Early versions of SQL were actually called SEQUEL (Structured English QUEry Language). - Sequel is just much easier to say than SQL, especially within a sentence.

You save a syllable, but also the letters SQL are on the unpleasant side of pronunciation. Just like the word "askew" -- it's just not a nice mouthfeel with that particular sequence of sounds.

But you will insert even more vowels if you pronounce it as "My Ess Kyoo El". Same with HHMMV/Humvee.

History plays a role here. It used to be called SEQUEL before it was renamed to SQL.

To be fair, 12/20 _is_ closer to 2/3 than 1/2.

D'oh, nice catch

I've been saying My-Skwill since I was a kid. I pronounce SQL alone as three letters though.

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