>>>>BTW, some database experts prefer to use plural for table names.
>>>>
>>>>And some prefer singular. Andy is an expert SQL Server developer and DBA and he prefers singular. As a matter of fact, he says that all of the SQL Server developers he knows prefer singular.
>>>
>>>"All"? That's a pretty big word. :)
>>>
>>>And again, the use of the word "preference". :)
>>
>>Isn't the rationale behind using singular that you refer to the "record structure" (I guess these days you would call it an entities) rather than to the contents of the table (i.e. its records). I have found that the rationale helps enforcing the singular naming convention, whether that is intuitive, with retrospect, I'm less sure.
>>
>>Table names like "inventory" or "ledger" are singular alright, but they are also fuzzy.
>
>Yes, the rationale is the granularity, often with respect to the .child transaction (fact) tables.
>
>Candidly, protracted discussions on things like this lead to business stakeholders concluding that technical people are nothing but geeks who fall on their sword over trivial topics. Their conclusion isn't 100% fair but understandable. It's best to pick a method that makes sense for the database and be consistent with it and be done with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_law

or, perhaps more precisely in this circumstance,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Triviality