title: FREETEXT queries in SQL Server 2008 not phrase matching
body: <p>I have a full text indexed table in SQL Server 2008 that I am trying to query for an exact phrase match using FULLTEXT.  I don't believe using CONTAINS or LIKE is appropriate for this, because in other cases the query might not be exact (user doesn't surround phrase in double quotes) and in general I want to flexibility of FREETEXT.  </p>
  
  <p>According to the <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms176078.aspx" rel="nofollow">documentation</a>[MSDN] for FREETEXT:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>If freetext_string is enclosed in double quotation marks, a phrase match is instead performed; stemming and thesaurus are not performed.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>which would lead me to believe a query like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>SELECT Description  
  FROM Projects   
  WHERE FREETEXT(Description, '"City Hall"')  
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>would only return results where the term "City Hall" appears in the Description field, but instead I get results like this:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>1  Design of handicap ramp at Manning Hall.<br>
    2  Antenna investigation. Client: City of Cranston Engineering Dept.<br>
    3  Structural investigation regarding fire damage to International Tennis Hall of Fame.<br>
    4  Investigation Roof investigation for proposed satellite design on Herald Hall.<br>
    ... etc</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Obviously those results include at least one of the words in my phrase, but not the phrase itself.  What's worse, I had thought the results would be ranked but the two results I actually wanted (because they include the actual phrase) are buried.</p>
  
  <pre><code>SELECT Description  
  FROM Projects  
  WHERE Description LIKE '%City Hall%'  
  </code></pre>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>1  Major exterior and interior renovation of the existing city hall for Quincy Massachusetts<br>
    2  Cursory structural investigation of Pawtucket City Hall tower plagued by leaks.  </p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>I'm sure this is a case of me not understanding the documentation, but is there a way to achieve what I'm looking for?  Namely, to be able to pass in a search string without quotes and get exactly what I'm getting now or with quotes and get only that exact phrase?</p>