Enter an optional argument to back your assertion -- or email us at an audio clip of your argument, pronunciation, or both at curriculum ('ah-t) ebizq.net. At the end of the poll on Oct. 31, we'll choose one winner from among the submissions who will receive an iPhone.

Wondering what you're up against? Here are some of the best printable responses to date:

If you're in the elevator with the CEO and you start saying es, oh, aye you will get nothing else done and put him off with something hard to remember that is all Geek to senior management. Be smart and use the KISS approach.

I don't use the word with business leaders, and rarely with executives in IT without it being either in print or part of a powerpoint. There is never a doubt of what word I'm saying. My elevator pitch does not say "SOA". I say "Integration". (SOA is just a tool).

"Service" and "Architecture" are the meaty words here. Don't dilute the service term by hpyphenating. As far as the elevator pitch goes, not a big difference between the two.

I typically type SOA-Service Oriented Architecture at the beginning of the document/powerpoint ...a nd thern refer to it as SOA ("soah") thereafter.

Don't talk about SOA with the CEO, unless he brings it up. Talk about the business vision, or something he cares about.

The second pronunciation is too indistinct a sound, compared to say, "CORBA" or even "SOAP".

When explaining SOA, be ready to answer the question; "So, ahh ... what is SOA?"

"SOA" sounds cheap. What would you say to ESB and RFID for that matter? I still pronounce 'W-S-D-L' rather than weezdel?

If this is the biggest contribution you can make? Or perhaps, this is another lame poll designed to attract traffic?
ebizQ's Gian Trotta replies: The latter part of the second inquiry is correct, but we disagree with the "lame" assessment.

There are too many TLAs out there, let's say "SO-ARCH"...

Like SOS (Save Our Souls), SOA (Save Our Acronyms) needs each letter to be sounded out. Saying "Soah", is too much like saying Noah, and there's nothing biblical about it, other than its been around since time began, and no one understands why it suddenly needs a fancy name.

Its like people that say gooey for GUI -- Its a slimy nasty way to speak --Just say HCI instead (no one would ever think of saying HiCkIe). Still, pronouncing SOAP as if someones taking a bath is right. What you need is a consonant terminator.

As per the article from soamag.com, it can be pronounce as "soh-uh". As per ZDnet, "so-ah".

Who cares about anyone's opinion "on this important matter"? I am just here for the iPod and the free beer!
Trotta: We didn't promise any free beer, but that's not a bad idea! We'll hops to it next time!

S-O-A as in -- "SOA is definitely NOT D-O-A!"

From the perspective of German person, SOA sounds so much better, as it is the same pronounciation in German as in English opposing a completly different sound when spelling each letter separately.

I always pronounced it S-O-A until I read about your survey, but the other way seems so good I wrote a limerick about it:
When I first heard of calling it "Soa"
I could see that my old way was slower,
And now S-O-A
Seems so clumsy to say,
I'm convinced that the new way's a goer!

It's always funny to talk about SOA with a non-EAI-educated person in the Netherlands. In our country SOA stands for Sociaal Overdraagbare Aandoening which means Sexual Transmitted DiseaseYou should have seen the look on the face of a PR guy ... when I first told him this at TUCON 2006.

We should allow more outsiders to be welcomed to the technology concepts.

I prefer "Soah" for SOA but not sure other person understands it as easily as it sounds.

"SOA" --it's just easier.

I always get tripped up when 'an' is used in a sentence before 'SOA'.

I hope this is just for good fun...

You guys need to come up with better polls
Trotta: Duly noted -- just wait until you see our "BI" poll!

How about SOW, as in sowing seeds of SOA?

With soa-moa one forgets what it is about.

Ess-oh-ay all the way -- only dumb marketing types who want to sound "cool" use the "sewer" phrase.

Without explicitly saying "business" services I believe the default understanding should be both "business" and "technical" services -- don't believe that's the norm today.

I think acronyms sometime confuses, SOA doesn't reflect the uniqueness as it could stand for many other things.

"Service" is the problem term, IMHO. Some poet among us should come up with a whole new term, or we should borrow one from a poet, as Murray Gell-Mann did with "quark."

Using "soah" enables you to use "a soah" which is similar to "a service-oriented architecture"

I usually feel compelled to use S-O-A when talking to business people to avoid sounding like an IT guy throwing jargon at them but within the group it's always soah!

SOA or S-O-A -- it's all about the VALUE man!

SOA falls in as a single-word acronym because it can be -- we say I-B-M because ib-em is nonsensical. If, for example, the F-B-I were actually the Federal investigation Bureau we would say Fib. There is no rule but we are lazy speakers who love acronyms because they save us time (LOL) and, if we can save even more time by creating one utterance instead of three -- we will.

Saying it as a word sounds like a conversational pause; (e.g. So, uh, what should be do now?)

It's like the SQL argument all over again...

The point of an acronym is to make it as short as possible -- two syllables wins out over three.

S.O.A is how it should be written and pronounced, need not sound anything else, be it messiah or soya or whatever.

So-ah: more mysterious this way ... plus, we can write things like "so, uh ... are you familiar with SOA?"

Even before we have agreed on pronounciation, some are suggesting SOA has had its day and proposing new TLA's.

Make it simple and all it SOA(as in moa).

I hate it when I see "an SOA" in a sentence, not gramatically correct!

You must have tooo...much free time!
Trotta: Not after editing all these responses!

You say potato I say potahto...

Isn't one and the same definition more important than one and the same pronounciation? ;.)

Just be qiuck so the answer is not DOA!

Service is as service does...

It's also s-a-p, not sap

When talking to business people, they tend to say Es-oh-Ay while technical people tend to say SOA (rhymes with 'moa').

I prefer calling it Yes-oh-yeah.

What's a "moa" anyway?
Trotta: It's a large, now-extinct flightless bird. But in retrospect, maybe we should have said "boa."

Obviously I have too much time on my hands too.