2001-02-01 23:07:02

by Wayne.Brown

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: spelling of disc (disk) in /devfs



To confuse things even more, I have a "Hewlett-Packard 9114 Disc Drive," which
is really a 720K 3.5-inch diskette drive.

Wayne




"Michael B. Trausch" <[email protected]> on 01/31/2001 05:00:34 PM

To: "Jeremy M. Dolan" <[email protected]>
cc: Alan Chandler <[email protected]>, [email protected]
(bcc: Wayne Brown/Corporate/Altec)

Subject: Re: spelling of disc (disk) in /devfs



On Thu, 1 Feb 2001, Jeremy M. Dolan wrote:
>
> On Thu, 01 Feb 2001 00:19:56 +0000, Alan Chandler wrote:
> > The thing that struck me most was the spelling of disc with a 'c'. As
> > an Englishman this is the correct spelling for me most of the time,
> > but I have come to accept "as a technical term" disk (as in American)
> > is the right name for these devices.
>
> Disk is spelled 'disk' except for Compact Disc and Digital Versatile
> Disc. If it wasn't 3:30 in the morning, a patch would be attached.
>

Anymore, even I refer to everything as discs, I used to be hardcore in
establishing the difference between disks, discs, and diskettes. However,
it's really useless, given that nobody even understands "diskette" in the
general public when I say it, I wind up explaining it.

- Mike

===========================================================================
Michael B. Trausch [email protected]
Avid Linux User since April, '96! AIM: ML100Smkr

Contactable via IRC (DALNet) or AIM as ML100Smkr
===========================================================================


2001-02-01 23:13:03

by Mike Harrold

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: spelling of disc (disk) in /devfs

>
>
>
> To confuse things even more, I have a "Hewlett-Packard 9114 Disc Drive," which
> is really a 720K 3.5-inch diskette drive.
>
> Wayne

My understanding (going back to the 80s) is that the correct term is
disc. "disk" is short for diskette. (discette would be pronounced as
"dissect" (think miscellaneous), so "diskette" was used instead.

So, when referring to a 3.5" or 5.25" floppy, "disk" would be correct
since they are diskettes. However, a "hard drive" is very much a disc
(or nowadays a group of discs). A "hard disc" would refer to one of
the constituents of a "hard drive".

Regards,

/Mike

>
>
>
>
> "Michael B. Trausch" <[email protected]> on 01/31/2001 05:00:34 PM
>
> To: "Jeremy M. Dolan" <[email protected]>
> cc: Alan Chandler <[email protected]>, [email protected]
> (bcc: Wayne Brown/Corporate/Altec)
>
> Subject: Re: spelling of disc (disk) in /devfs
>
>
>
> On Thu, 1 Feb 2001, Jeremy M. Dolan wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, 01 Feb 2001 00:19:56 +0000, Alan Chandler wrote:
> > > The thing that struck me most was the spelling of disc with a 'c'. As
> > > an Englishman this is the correct spelling for me most of the time,
> > > but I have come to accept "as a technical term" disk (as in American)
> > > is the right name for these devices.
> >
> > Disk is spelled 'disk' except for Compact Disc and Digital Versatile
> > Disc. If it wasn't 3:30 in the morning, a patch would be attached.
> >
>
> Anymore, even I refer to everything as discs, I used to be hardcore in
> establishing the difference between disks, discs, and diskettes. However,
> it's really useless, given that nobody even understands "diskette" in the
> general public when I say it, I wind up explaining it.
>
> - Mike
>
> ===========================================================================
> Michael B. Trausch [email protected]
> Avid Linux User since April, '96! AIM: ML100Smkr
>
> Contactable via IRC (DALNet) or AIM as ML100Smkr
> ===========================================================================
>
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to [email protected]
> Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
>
>
>
>
>
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to [email protected]
> Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
>

2001-02-02 00:33:58

by Michael Trausch

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: spelling of disc (disk) in /devfs

On Thu, 1 Feb 2001 [email protected] wrote:
>
> To confuse things even more, I have a "Hewlett-Packard 9114 Disc Drive," which
> is really a 720K 3.5-inch diskette drive.
>
> Wayne
>

Hrm.. hehehe, well, it may be confusing, but I've accepted the public's
unwillingness to use the real term. I am pretty flexible when it comes to
how people address things and just go with the flow. If it's disc in
Linux, let it just stay that way, 'cuz that's what I'll use. Otherwise,
it'll break when things start to use disk.

- Mike

===========================================================================
Michael B. Trausch [email protected]
Avid Linux User since April, '96! AIM: ML100Smkr

Contactable via IRC (DALNet) or AIM as ML100Smkr
===========================================================================