MySQL FULLTEXT search (match against) not working
It's not working because &quot;what&quot; is a &quot;stopword&quot; ...
from https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/fulltext-stopwords.html
I followed the instructions and created a new stopword list.
create table test.custom_stopwords as
select * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.INNODB_FT_DEFAULT_STOPWORD
where length(value) = 1;

SET GLOBAL innodb_ft_server_stopword_table = 'test/custom_stopwords';

Then I rebuilt the fulltext index and it worked with the word &quot;what.&quot;