If you inadvertedly created a table with a column name that 's a reserved word, you will find it not so convenience to use. To rename the column, you can't do something like

mysql> ALTER TABLE table_name CHANGE COLUMN reserved_word new_column_name varchar(255);

Instead, you have to it this way:

mysql> ALTER TABLE `table_name` CHANGE COLUMN `table_name`.`reserved_word` `table_name`.`new_column_name` varchar(255);