When people say SQL, when they really mean MS SQL Server.

at home I used MySQL and at work MSSQL. I accidently say MySQL all the time and they are like what type. they are not devs so they have no idea what it is

I'm confused isn't SQL just the general term. I'm just saying it seems like they are still correct. There is no time where someone says SQL without meaning some sort of distribution of it right? Or, am I completely missing something?

Well SQL is a (sort of standard) language that most (all today) RDBMS's implement to manipulate data.

MS SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle etc are DB products which use some variant of the SQL language.

The problem is people often say SQL, but they really mean MS SQL Server. Job ads seem to do this a lot!

@spl0 and I'm guessing the problem with saying SQL instead of MSSQL Server in a job description is two fold.

SQL is more about knowing the standard where as MSSQL has some specific knowledge required that is not part of the standard. I'm guessing companies go as far in interviews to require you to know the the parts that make MSSQL Server different. That last part would make me a little mad if they merely advertised SQL in the interview.

@spl0 so is SQL to MySQL what EcmaScript is to JavaScript?

@johnfoobar No idea what EcmaScript is - way out of my expertise I'm afraid! :(
But all databases use 4 basic commands to manipulate data - SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE. Those are SQL commands and every database that implements SQL will use those.
If a job says it wants SQL, your knowledge of any SQL database should help. But if they say SQL, then expect you to have used MS SQL, they might be disappointed.
If you use MS SQL, you probably will be disappointed, but that's another story :-)

Saying it's a SQL database when you ask what kind of a database server they have is like asking someone what language they code in and they say Visual Studio.