This is something that annoys me greatly, the acronym ‘SQL’ is just that, an acronym, it is not pronounceable as a word because it has no vowels.
Why is it that some unpronounceable acronyms are always referred to as such (eg DVD) and yet others are seemingly acceptable to arbitrarily modify.
There is a comedy TV show called ‘Fonejacker’ where someone makes humorous telephone calls to unsuspecting members of the public, and one of his sketches is posing as a man who tries to arbitrarily modify unpronounceable acronyms so that he can say them, often causing great confusion to the person on the other end of the phone. For instance, he will call an electronics store and ask for a “Doovde player” (DVD player) or perhaps a “Puss 3” (PS3). A few examples of this can be found on Youtube:
And many more can be found simply by searching for ‘fonejacker’.
So why is it considered acceptable to mispronounce ‘SQL’ as ‘sequel’ and yet mispronouncing ‘DVD’ as ‘doovde’ is considered ridiculous? This becomes even more stupid once you consider that ‘sequel’ is an actual word which has a different meaning, whereas ‘doovde’ doesn’t have any other meaning, and could thus easily be used as a word referring to ‘DVD’.