Heyitsrick

I am no expert (newbie!), trust me, but I would guess that the SELECT portion of the query using the shortcut/aliases doesn't really come into play until all the other parameters/conditions are meted out (FROM, INNER JOIN, WHERE, etc.) Once all the conditions of the query are set in place, then it will go about trying to "understand" the elements being selected. That's my uneducated guess, and maybe someone else will chime in to verify or dispute that.