soundex (!)

Use the soundex (!) operator to expand queries to include words that have similar sounds; that is, words that sound like other words. This function allows comparison of words that are spelled differently, but sound alike in English.

Syntax

Syntax	Description
!term	Expands a query to include all terms that sound the same as the specified term (English-language text only).

Examples

SELECT ID, COMMENT FROM EMP_RESUME
WHERE CONTAINS (COMMENT, '!SMYTHE') > 0 ;

ID COMMENT 
-- ------------
23 Smith is a hard worker who..

Notes

Soundex works best for languages that use a 7-bit character set, such as English. It can be used, with lesser effectiveness, for languages that use an 8-bit character set, such as many Western European languages.

If you have base-letter conversion specified for a text column and the query expression contains a soundex operator, Oracle operates on the base-letter form of the query.