Eddie Awad’s Blog - Latest Comments in Char or Car?

Re: Char or Car?

Dennis Bergkamp — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 04:05:25 -0000

How about DATABASE??

Is that day-ter-base or dar-ter-base????

(Runs and hides before the flamewars start!!!)

Re: Char or Car?

Lacey — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 16:59:06 -0000

SQL: sequel for me. When I read my first SQL book, 1998, the first paragraph stated that it was pronounced "sequel". Spelling out the letters takes too long for me...and seems too nerdy.

I've long wondered about char and car...I consider car correct, because it is the beginning of the pronounciation for the entire word - character. However, I now realize that I don't apply the same thing to the var - I don't pronounce it with the vare from variable. Char just sounds wrong to me...like I'm going to eat it. :)

Re: Char or Car?

Fred — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 06:48:36 -0000

BPEL = bee-pull (like people)

That's how we pronounce it at Active Endpoints. IBM and SAP evidently agree, because they created a human interaction spec for BPEL called BPEL4People. You wouldn't pronounce this bipple4pipple, would you? ;)

Re: Char or Car?

Matthew — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 11:47:07 -0000

Well, I guess it could be worse...

We could call VI... 'Six'

:-p

Re: Char or Car?

david brower — Tue, 09 May 2006 16:04:52 -0000

Let's see, when I was in Berkeley in the early 80s, VI was pronounced both
ways, except by emacs fans who said "vile".

People who say sequel were exposed to it (or influenced people
who were) through System R, before DB2 was released in 1985.
Those who came later are more likely to use letters. "Squirrel"
is amusing if one realizes both what SQL is to Codd's relational
calculus, and the way Scientology considers 'squirrel technology'
an adulterated and unauthorized version of the truth as revealed
by the founder. (http://www.xenu.net)</p>

char as car comes from literalists and ex-LISPers.

char as in charcoal seems about equally prevalent
and more likely in use by those who like alliteration
and the perceived symmetry of pronouncing all
the letters in 'char star'. I'd guess those with roots
in consonent happy languages prefer the harder
flavor.

BLOB is an abortion of retronyming. The inventor
meant the plain word 'blobl', see
http://www.cvalde.net/misc/blob_true_history.htm
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLOB.</p>

I don't much like 'klob", and use cee-lob,
which I think goes back to hard consonant
preference.

BPEL rhymes with nipple. Anyone who says otherwise is a prude.

-dB

Re: Char or Car?

notebook — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 05:31:50 -0000

I other words,
WC=wait cry....
SQL=sun quack loud

Re: Char or Car?

Mauricio — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 13:06:00 -0000

As most of the people say in Brazil:

SQL - esse-kay-elee (spelled out in portuguese)
PL/SQL - Pay-elee esse-kay-elee
CHAR - Always char.
BLOB, CLOB - As written
VI - vay-ee (spelled out in portuguese)
WSDL - dablio-esse-day-elee
Linux - Lee nukes

The consonants p (pay), d (day), q (kay), v (vay) are really short.

Re: Char or Car?

me — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 17:45:35 -0000

Obviously there are people in the world that are sad enough to think that this actually matters.

Re: Char or Car?

Richard Wendel — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 08:31:21 -0000

I actually go with Char as 'care' is in char-acter...

amazingly enough, however, I still pronounce varchar as varcar (easier than varcare I suppose...sounds like an health insurance company)

Re: Char or Car?

Anthony Wilson — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 11:14:46 -0000

I think this is a good compromise solution to at least one of these questions.

Re: Char or Car?

William Robertson — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 07:07:29 -0000

Interesting to see a Vee-Eyer outside the US. I wonder if anyone here in the UK says "Vee-Eye". It's not like the "I" stands for anything.

Re: Char or Car?

Anthony Wilson — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 00:19:37 -0000

My experience here in Australia:

SQL - Sometimes S-Q-L and sometimes Sequel. I myself prefer the spelled out version.
Char - ALWAYS "Char". I've never dreamed somebody would pronounce it as "Car".
Blob, Clob - Always pronounced as they are written.
VI: ALWAYS "Vee-eye", I have never heard "Vie", at least not since my first UNIX experience in 1993.

Vie. That's just crazy :-)

Re: Char or Car?

Mark Bobak — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 17:34:15 -0000

Although not particularly popular, I've also heard SQL pronouned squeal....I find that variation particularly annoying.

Re: Char or Car?

Anthony — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 13:06:02 -0000

See-quel pisses me off, so I've decided to pick another arbitrary pronounciation and call it squeal when someone says see-quel.

Re: Char or Car?

Harry — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 11:25:32 -0000

This is as irrelevant as anything else I write, but my experience has been that people who became exposed to it through Oracle pronouce it "see-quel", while those who were exposed to it through Microsoft or IBM pronouce it "S-Q-L".

Re: Char or Car?

x^x — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 17:14:35 -0000

When I learned SQL in 1986, it was pronounced "S-Q-L".

CHAR was pronounced "char" as in charcoal.

Re: Char or Car?

Ach — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 07:07:16 -0000

Here in Iran everybody pronounce them as:
SQL: see-quel
char: car
clob: see-lob (personaly I used to say klob a long time ago)
blob: bee-lob
WSDL: W-S-D-L
BPEL: Beepel

Re: Char or Car?

Aleksander Dragnes — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 08:17:23 -0000

I have actually heard two different ways of pronouncing BPEL: 'bE-p&l (rhyming with 'people') and 'be-p&l (like 'pebble' with the 'P' and 'B's changing places). I think it might one of those trans-atlantic differences.

--
Aleksander

Re: Char or Car?

William Robertson — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 10:02:30 -0000

But what does dictionary.com say about char?

char
<programming> /keir/ or /char/; rarely, /kar/ character.
Especially used by {C} programmers, as "char" is {C}'s
typename for character data.

Re: Char or Car?

Bill S. — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 08:33:49 -0000

Just found a link to this on Orablogs, and thought I'd add my two cents worth as well.

I have always heard the terms (and myself pronounced them) as :

SQL - see-quel
PL/SQL - pee ell see-quel
CLOB - see-lob
BLOB - bee-lob
CHAR - car

The last one, mostly because dictionary.com says so:

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=character

Sounds more like "car" than "care" to me.
I tried to post the entry itself, but the really important characters went missing ;-D.

Bill S.

Re: Char or Car?

Matt — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 06:30:27 -0000

Sql = squirrel

Oracle = 'orrible

I probably require professional help

Re: Char or Car?

cj — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 22:23:03 -0000

The Preface to the SQLPlus User's Guide and Reference begins with"The SQLPlus (pronounced "sequel plus")...". This pronounciation guide seems to have been introduced in SQLPlus 3.0 (which accompanied Oracle 6.0). It doesn't appear to be in either the SQLPlus 2.0 User's Guide or the Reference Guide.

Re: Char or Car?

DaPi — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 18:59:21 -0000

I first came across BLOB in about 1968 - at that time LOB and CLOB didn't seem to exist. As BLOB's were to be handled without reference to any internal structure, they were seen as amorphous entities like a blob of cream. No question about how to pronounce it.

Re: Char or Car?

Herodt — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 16:21:58 -0000

SCSI = Scuzzy

Re: Char or Car?

FranÃ§ois Degrelle — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 12:19:03 -0000

And : SCSI
How do you pronounce this word ?