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Comment by TazeTSchnitzel | Hacker News Reader

For anyone confused: What Steve pronounces as Olé/Olay is OLE.

There was some weird 90s conversion of abbreviations to acronyms. One suck.com writer was called 'Duke of URL' pronounced like 'Duke of Earl'

The Yahoo campus cafe URLs is pronounced "Earl's"

Acronyms, traditionally, are by definition pronounceable as words. Things like "U.S.A." where you only pronounce the letters are called initialisms.

> Acronyms, traditionally, are by definition pronounceable as words.

Yes, I'm aware of that, hence stating 'There was some weird 90s conversion of abbreviations to acronyms' in the comment you're replying to.

I say Earl when I speak of U.R.L.s. And I'm not ashamed of it.

Never mind how it's pronounced. No developers in their right mind would automate Excel from their web server the way they did in that demo!

Many developers "in their right mind" did exactly that. For a pretty long time, this was the way people manipulated spreadsheets in an automated fashion unless you wanted to buy expensive products from third-party vendors.

So many people do that Microsoft keeps a knowledge base article about it:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/257757

"We don't recommend or support it but because you want to do it anyway, here's what to consider to make it work less badly"

How would you pronounce it?

Oh El Eee, like the names of its constituent letters.

But then I've never heard it pronounced, only ever read it. So maybe "Olay" was the normal pronunciation.

> So maybe "Olay" was the normal pronunciation.

It was.

I assume you also say SQL as 'ess que ell' as opposed to 'sequel.' Probably a generational thing.

I say "olay" but "ess que ell". For me OLE is closer to an actual word (Olé), but SQL is nothing like "sequel".

SQL was originally SEQUEL, thus the pronunciation :)

It took me a while to learn "sequel" was the pronunciation, yes.

But this is because I learned SQL from reading about it, not going to conferences.

That's the point where I cease to follow any discernible convention. I don't think I'm the only one.

  SQL:        "ess kyoo el"
  T-SQL:      "tee-sequel"
  PL/SQL:     "pee el ess kyoo el"
  SQLite:     "sequelite"
  SQL Server: "sequel server"
  MySQL:      "my ess kyoo el"
  PostgreSQL  "Postgres"

PostgreSQL may be the worst/best compromise. The Press FAQ provides an audio file the pronounces it post-grez-que-elle, keeping enough of both pronunciations to be a linguistic spork. Considering it's roots with Ingres, it makes sense, but it also feels like a layered pun.

http://www.postgresql.org/files/postgresql.mp3

"SQL" is pretty complicated:

http://patorjk.com/blog/2012/01/26/pronouncing-sql-s-q-l-or-...

Once interviewed a guy who kept talking about knowing "Squeel". Had no idea what he was talking about until he mentioned "Squeel Server". Cue banjo music...

I've never heard GUI pronounced until moving to the Bay Area. Before I called it G-U-I (still do).

I've never known anyone to spell it out like that. It has always been "gooey".

I loved the CRUD acronym when I first heard it. Sounds like an insult, and it kind of is one!

Whizzy wig was the first time I realised what I'd read in my head wasn't how others pronounced an acronym.

Mine was the first time i tried to buy a SCSI drive in the US. The sales person didn't even understand what i meant, when i said "es see es i". Then he pronounced "sceuzy" and i was amazed :))

I once requested the "Wi-fi" key in a hotel, at St. Malo, France. The receptionist gave me a weird look and, after I explained myself, said «Oh, le "wee-fee"».

You arrr ell

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