Standardize indefinite article for SQL

[findepi]

A dictionary-proper pronunciation of SQL acronym seems to be as an acronym S-Q-L, not a word "sequel", so it should have an and not a.

The docs and codebase comments were not consistent about this and this change makes them consistent.

[mosabua]

This is a tricky subject and there is no right answer. Both acronym and word usage are common and accepted at this stage.

• The Google developer documentation style (which we follow) suggests to use "a SQL statement" (see https://developers.google.com/style/word-list#letter-s) but isn't very definitive about it,
• Meriam Webster (our standard dictionary otherswise) does not show an answer,
• When writing the book recently the OReilly editors suggested to standardizes on "an SQL statement" and that got implemented.
• would be interesting to see what the ANSI SQL standard documentation uses .. maybe we should follow that

Personally I find myself jumping back and forth, but prefer "an SQL statement". However I am fine with either decision. Being consistent would definitely be better.

As such I suggest others like @electrum @kasiafi @martint and @dain help with a decisions . and once made we should add that somewhere .. maybe the docs folder readme file.

[martint]

Indeed, it's a tricky subject with no right answers. Just take a look at https://learnsql.com/blog/sql-or-sequel/

I myself have been using the "sequel" pronunciation when speaking, so "an SQL" sounds very unnatural to me.

[alexjo2144]

"an SQL" sounds very unnatural to me.

For me as well. Though in many of these I don't think the word SQL adds much to the sentence. "A(n) SQL procedure" and "A procedure" say the same thing to me.

[colebow]

If we're going to standardize, I would prefer to standardize to "a SQL" rather than "an SQL." "An sequel" sounds profoundly wrong, while "a S-Q-L" is much less jarring - it's the kind of mistake people make quite often, to the point that it has begun to sound more natural, even if still technically wrong. So my feel is that "a" strikes a happier middle ground.

As a datapoint, we have preferred "a SQL" over "an SQL" historically - I count 21 instances of "a SQL" in all of Trino, and only 9 of "an SQL." I don't think we should be bound to our past decisions, but I do think it's worth considering that when we weren't thinking about it, we did strongly lean that way.

But in my eyes, the optimal solution is in the same vein as what @alexjo2144 is hinting at, which is to just avoid situations where we would say "a/an SQL" so we can avoid being wrong in the eyes of half our readers. Reword the sentence, use "the" instead, drop the "SQL," etc.

[kasiafi]

The SQL Standard uses "an SQL ...", but it is expected, as this is very formal language.
Since our documentation is not that formal, I'm fine with either "a SQL" or "an SQL", as long as we're consistent. I slightly opt for "an SQL", as this was my initial intuition, same as @findepi's.

However, I would not try to remove the occurrences of "SQL" just because we're not sure about the "a"/"an". To me, the word "SQL" is meaningful, and it helps me classify the abstractions better when I read.

I count 21 instances of "a SQL" in all of Trino

@alexjo2144 I account for some of them, but I wrote them initially as "an SQL", and changed later to "a SQL" as requested during review.