<> means 'is not this'
Sometimes it's easier to say what you don't want. The symbol <> means 'is not equal to', so rows holding that value are left out and everything else comes back. Many databases also accept != for the same thing, but <> works everywhere.
A tiny example
In plain English: Show me the titles of the books that are not borrowed.
SELECT title
FROM books
WHERE status <> 'borrowed';What comes back
| title |
|---|
| Dune |
| Wool |
Dune and Wool are the only books whose status is something other than 'borrowed'.
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