Is "disk" just a different spelling of "disc" or are they actually different words?

renzev@lemmy.world to Lemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world – 37 points –

I heard some people say theyre the same thing, but others are adamant that they have different meanings. Which is it?

70

Disk is for things that are more kiki, but disc, with that rounded off c, is for things that are more bouba.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/disk

In most varieties of English, disk is the preferred spelling for magnetic media (hence floppy disk, hard disk, disk drive), whereas disc is preferred for optical media (hence compact disc, digital versatile disc, optical disc). For all other uses, disk is preferred in American English and acceptable in Canadian English, and disc otherwise.

Less commonly, disc is used for magnetic media (as in floppy disc and discette; similarly, disk is sometimes used for optical media, as in compact disk and optical disk.

The reason for this is actually pretty interesting though. Historically it was just a US/UK English difference, but it evolved into both being used because one of the first big manufacturers of optical discs, Philips, called them discs, while the US-based IBM spelled their magnetic disks with a K.

You've exceeded my "learning cool stuff" limit today. Thank you. Now I can't retain any other information.

Disc is short for discus.

Disk is short for diskette, the square things some discs are kept in.

Everything on the left is a drive, but only half of them are disks:

Hard Disk Drive

USB pen drive

Floppy Disk Drive

Solid State Drive

Disc and disk are varient spellings of the same word that pre-exist computing. Disc is more common in British English, Disk more common in American English. But yeah since computing came along disk has also been used more for magnetic media (hard disk) while disc has been used more for optical media (compact disc). I wouldn't be surprised if this only happened because of how the CD was marketed and branded as a "compact disc" as a trademark while hard disks and floppy disks etc were more generic terms.

Bloody English spelling... There's a reason spelling bees don't exist in some other languages.

We have a competition for spelling because English spelling is so bad at its job.

Its a disk when its magnetic, disc when optical.

The way to remember it is that its disk because its magnetik.

Perhaps it's just a leftover marketing motif?

"The spelling disk and disc are used interchangeably except where trademarks preclude one usage, e.g., the Compact Disc logo. The choice of a particular form is frequently historical, as in IBM's usage of the disk form beginning in 1956 with the "IBM 350 disk storage unit". "

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_storage

They're all the same word at their core, evolving from the older Latin word. The difference just comes in how the words were used to describe either a computer related device, hard disk, floppy disk, or a sound carrying device, disc record, compact disc.

At its root this was originally a British vs. American English thing. However, the spelling of "disc" with a C has been used specifically as the trade name of various brands including both the throwable and optical media varieties, which have since become genericized trademarks.

For the optical media side of things, the name was coined by Phillips while they were consorting with Sony to develop the standard and named it the "Compact Disc" to compliment their already existing "Compact Cassette" product. They developed an official logo for the format which spelled it "disc." That's been with us ever since.

Volumes of computer storage are now colloquially referred to as "disks" because A) a significant majority of the early computer development milieu in general happened in America where we, or at least IBM, spell it with a K, and B) for a very long time, that's exactly what they were. Tape and magnetic core memory and wire loop memory were all early developments that ultimately gave way to the longstanding popularity of magnetic platter/disk fixed storage... With some exception granted to tape, which hung around for a very long time but definitely was not a random access storage medium suitable for general purpose applications whereas disks were. It's probably pure happenstance that the dominant non-fixed computer storage media also wound up being disk shaped, namely the various sizes and types of floppy disks. Computers handle linear tape based storage and random access disk based storage very differently, and nowadays random access permanent storage still has the "disk" moniker stuck to it even though it's now likely to be solid state.

As a generalized descriptor of a flat circular object, either "disk" or "disc" is appropriate but which is preferred seems to be largely depending on which continent you're from. The root of the word is indeed the Greek "discus," as in the object yeeted across the playing field by Olympic contestants.

I've been known to use them interchangeably.

It's British English (disc) vs American English (disk).

Edit: I present the Sony Portable Hard Disc Drive

Has nothing to do with country. Discs are round objects. In the computing sense that's cds, dvds, etc.

Disks are floppy disks(diskette, "discette" never existed as a word) , hard drive disks.... etc. There is a difference and it has nothing to do with what land you're in. Disk in usa never meant a circular object like a Frisbee (discus for example)

But the floppy diskette and the "hard disks" did in fact have circular discs inside that spin around.

I suspect that the word diskette was created as an analog to tape "cassette". With both diskette and cassette, the media is stored inside an enclosure, and you don't have to take it out manually.

"-Ette" is a common diminutive used to imply that something is a smaller version of something else. Like many things, we nicked it from the French.

Cigarette, a little cigar. Featurette, a short feature. Novelette, a miniature novel. Etc.

So, diskette, a little disk. Quite separate from the ones spinning in your company's mainframe at the time. Those ones were two feet in diameter locked in a steel cabinet that weighs two tons. This one can fit in your shirt pocket. You get the idea.

As others have said and how I always see it:

  • Discs are small, circular, flat objects, e.g. the discus;
  • Disks are discs used for computer stuff, e.g. floppy disk(ettes), CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, hard disks, and so forth...

In other words, all disks are discs, but not all discs are disks.

Here's a shitty drawing I made to illustrate:

upvoted for your spiffy drawing, although i don't agree with it

Lol, thanks.

What about my distinction do you disagree with, though?

I don’t think the differentiation makes any sense at all.

edit: to clarify-- this isn't a criticism of the op's sketch; i just don't think any attempt makes sense

my attempt to simplify the above explanation; -disc =round -disk =storage

Storage can be round but not all round things are storage

But that doesn't cover the round storage we call compact discs. It's just nonsensical

I mean to me compact disc sounds like small and round. Just happens to also be storage media 🤷‍♂️

Disc = round

Disk = rectangular

This is correct in most cases but I don't think it's the underlying principle.

This wiki talks about the etymology, with a lot of examples. Most conform to this rule, but there are exceptions in astrophysics like an accretion disk.

Even in info tech, "hard disk" doesn't really conform to this rule. Like is a hard disk a square hard drive or is it the round thing inside? If it's the square hard drive, that's not thin enough to be a "disk". I'd it's the round thing inside that would be hard disc, but also creates problems for floppy disk because why refer to the housing in one instance but not another.

Sadly, I think the correct answer is that either refers to a thin flat thing, some spellings are preferred for some uses.

til disk is actually preferred in American English. from your link:

Usage notes

In most varieties of English, disk is the preferred spelling for magnetic media (hence floppy disk, hard disk, disk drive), whereas disc is preferred for optical media (hence compact disc, digital versatile disc, optical disc). For all other uses, disk is preferred in American English and acceptable in Canadian English, and disc otherwise.

Find me an American who says his car is equipped with "disk brakes." "Disk" is peculiar to computer magnetic storage media, and "disc" for a round object that probably spins.

Wikipedia tells me that they were initially developed in England and finally patented in Germany, so I'm guessing that's why the British spelling is used in that case.

sir, this is lemmy shitpost. Here's a citation for thinkin too hard, don't let it happen again.

I’ve always viewed it as the Disk contains the Disc. IOW, the floppy has the magnetic disc in it. The optical disc is the disc without the Disk.

Probably completely wrong etymologically, but semantically it’s fun.

Where does that leave my solid state disk?

This is from Hard Disk Drive (HDD), which is a Hard Drive with a Disk. Some people think the HD stands for Hard Disk, and use it incorrectly in SSD, which has no disks.

Oh you're right is solid state drive not disk

A carryover of terminology?

We still say “film” even though most everything is recorded and played back via digital video.

I haven't heard USB drives or SSD's be referred to as disks.

You need to spend more time with hardcore tech nerds 😝

You’re right, mostly people don’t call them that, but they do qualify and all the low level systems call them disks