Re: "a SQL sever" vs "an SQL server"

Subject: Re: "a SQL sever" vs "an SQL server"
From: Odile Sullivan-Tarazi <odile -at- mindspring -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 10:00:22 -0700



Oracle style guidelines call for the pronunciation to be "sequel," and so the article "a" (as you've noted) follows as a matter of course. Judging from three or four of the docs posted on the IBM website, IBM goes with pronouncing the individual letters, from which, naturally, the other form of the indefinite article follows.

Since both pronunciations are current, to determine which you'll want to enforce, you might check to see what some of the major publishers are doing. O'Reilly seems to go with "sequel" -- though I've checked only a couple of books.

Not all of your audience will read the acronym the same, so whichever way you go, some portion of your readers will experience a disconnect when hitting the article + acronym combination you've chosen. But at least your docs will be consistent, and if you do your research beforehand, you have a better chance of squelching further argument on the matter.


Odile





At 12:02 PM -0400 9/22/05, arroxaneullman -at- aol -dot- com wrote:

Hi folks,

This came up today.

In our old documentation the author uses "an" for SQL server. But all our people pronounced "SQL" as "sequel." So, one of the engineers came to me and said, "this is all wrong, it should be 'a SQL server'!" I explained that when pronouncing it as "ess cue ell" you would us "an."

So now this is a big discussion.

Your comments, opinions, and input, please.

Thanks.

Arroxane



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"a SQL sever" vs "an SQL server": From: arroxaneullman

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