how to search for records containing the search string?

say, my user entered "ELL", i want to be able to search into my table all records that contains the word "ELL" like "HELLO", "BELL", "SELLER"

select * from where like="%ELL%"

can i do this using locate? i want to search in the same table, not to put the result in a table or a cursor.

any help pls?