I'm not sure about other databases, but Microsft SQL Server has a function called SOUNDEX, which returns a "similarity" string that you can use for comparisons.

e.g.

SELECT description, SOUNDEX(description) AS SOUNDEX FROM mytable
description                                  SOUNDEX
-------------------------------------------- -------
Promessa High Spirits                        P652
Promessa high Spirits                        P652
Promessa Hgh Spirits                         P652
Promessa high spirits                        P652
And now for something completely different   A530
And now, for something completely different  A530
And now! Something completely different      A530
Something completely different now           S535
[download]

Description of SOUNDEX from manual:
SOUNDEX converts an alpha string to a four-character code to find similar-sounding words or names. The first character of the code is the first character of character_expression and the second through fourth characters of the code are numbers. Vowels in character_expression are ignored unless they are the first letter of the string. String functions can be nested.

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