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

["Guy K. Haas" <guy -at- hiskeyboard -dot- com>]

While [Merriam-]Webster's does not address pronunciation of initialism, 
a few other sources more widely accepted than Wikipedia do:

Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, 10th Edition

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=initialism

an acronym formed from initial letters

=========================================

Compact Oxford English Dictionary

http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/initialism?view=uk

an abbreviation consisting of initial letters pronounced separately 
(e.g. BBC).

=========================================

American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition

http://www.bartleby.com/61/48/I0144850.html

An abbreviation consisting of the first letter or letters of words in a 
phrase (for example, IRS for Internal Revenue Service), syllables or 
components of a word (TNT for trinitrotoluene), or a combination of 
words and syllables (ESP for extrasensory perception) and pronounced by 
spelling out the letters one by one rather than as a solid word.

=========================================

Encarta® World English Dictionary, North American Edition

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx?refid=1861621327

word made of initials pronounced separately: an abbreviation made up of 
initial letters that are all pronounced separately, e.g. UN for United 
Nations

=========================================

None the less, and notwithstanding (or nonetheless and not with 
standing), wikipedia does go to some lengths to explore various 
approaches to the enunication of sequences of letters used as names, AND 
as a bonus reports the "world's longest initialism, according to the 
Guinness Book of World Records is 
NIIOMTPLABOPARMBETZHELBETRABSBOMONIMONKONOTDTEKHSTROMONT" and also 
addresses recursive acronyms like GNU, providing a separate entry all 
about them (CAVE, LAME, PHP, PINE, ...) and cites a comic strip:
    "Recursive acronyms appeared in a Dilbert comic strip,
    in which Dilbert states that the TTP project refers to
    The TTP Project...."

--GKH
  SEiSV


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