At work: "Michael, you're a retro man*. Do you have a floppy I can borrow?" And I did, too. I use them for backing up. Though I'm now thinking of getting a USB keyring instead. (My backup script currently has to filter images and other large files out of the zipfiles it creates if I want them to fit on a floppy.)
As regards the spelling of "disk", there's a nice bit in Ken Macleod's The Sky Road where a character who knows what hard disks are says "It might damage the disks" (with a K), then the PoV character (who does not) searches for "anything that remotely resembled a disc" (with a C). (I take comfort in Macleod for my own fussiness over spelling; elsewhere in the book we have (the US/UN-run) "Space Defense" with USAn spelling, where the rest of the book spells the word "defence".
Compact Discs should get capital letters, and must definitely be spelled with a 'c', since it's a trademarked name that is used consistently in logos and such. While I suppose it could be argued that not all compact dis[ck]s are Compact Discs, I strongly suspect you were uniquely referring to the 12cm shiny digital 44.1kHz 16-bit stereo music medium.
As for hard discs and floppy discs, I'm much more relaxed. I had to type the phrases in order to know for certain how I spell them.
Hard disk, floppy disk, compact disc. The shape of a circular prism is "disc" as well.
I had a theory for a while about the intuitive distinction I draw, which is that a "disc" is anything actually disc-shaped whereas a "disk" is something non-disc-shaped but which contains a disc internally as its major moving part. Then someone pointed out that "Minidisc" might be a counterexample, although since that's a brand name it might simply be a special case.
I've heard the truncated diskette theory before, but I'm not clear on why floppies aren't allowed to be discs - they include a flat round thing just like hard discs do.
My dictionary says "disk" is the American spelling. So I think that we use "disk" for floppy and hard disks because they were invented and named that way in the US and then originally sold to a fairly specialised market here which could accept specialised terminology. Compact discs on the other hand were invented in Europe and sold to a mass market, so they use the conventional spelling. However I don't think Americans use "compact disk" either, at least not often.
I imagine this is the same as "program" verses "programme".
I've always used "disc" for floppies, hard drives and optical, mainly because I'm an ex-Acorn user, and RISC OS consistantly used the 'C' version. (The default hard disc name was, whimsically 'HardDisc4'.)
I don't have sideways titlebars, but I do use fvwm (and not fvwm2 either!). I don't see what's so good about all these new-fangled things that just seem to be aiming ever more towards Microsoft Windows.
(On the other hand, I was disappointed to find that I don't seem to be able to run the rhn-applet or the laptop battery applet without having a Gnome panel, so reluctantly I've added a tiny one of these to my screen on my home machine. The irritating thing about it is that it doesn't seem to be able to place itself without user intervention under my fvwm setup.)
The story I heard was the computer-related terminology that originated in the US is spelled the US way even in the UK (floppy disk, hard disk, program, ...) while terminology that originated in Europe is spelled the British way (compact disc: Philips is Dutch).
I have a xapm button in my buttons bar; when I'm using my laptop off battery I hit it and get a battery monitor (that covers the mail flag on my task bar, but I don't mind that). The relevant lines in my .fvwm2rc are:
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Floppies and disk/disc
Date: 2004-11-13 03:47 pm (UTC)As regards the spelling of "disk", there's a nice bit in Ken Macleod's The Sky Road where a character who knows what hard disks are says "It might damage the disks" (with a K), then the PoV character (who does not) searches for "anything that remotely resembled a disc" (with a C). (I take comfort in Macleod for my own fussiness over spelling; elsewhere in the book we have (the US/UN-run) "Space Defense" with USAn spelling, where the rest of the book spells the word "defence".
Re: Floppies and disk/disc
Date: 2004-11-13 04:22 pm (UTC)(People tend to get spooked by the sideways titlebars!)
But, no no no. It's "floppy disk[ette]", but hard disc!
Re: Floppies and disk/disc
Date: 2004-11-13 05:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-13 08:08 pm (UTC)As for hard discs and floppy discs, I'm much more relaxed. I had to type the phrases in order to know for certain how I spell them.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-14 12:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-14 01:00 am (UTC)I had a theory for a while about the intuitive distinction I draw, which is that a "disc" is anything actually disc-shaped whereas a "disk" is something non-disc-shaped but which contains a disc internally as its major moving part. Then someone pointed out that "Minidisc" might be a counterexample, although since that's a brand name it might simply be a special case.
Re: Floppies and disk/disc
Date: 2004-11-14 03:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-14 04:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-14 05:17 am (UTC)I've always used "disc" for floppies, hard drives and optical, mainly because I'm an ex-Acorn user, and RISC OS consistantly used the 'C' version. (The default hard disc name was, whimsically 'HardDisc4'.)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-15 04:13 am (UTC)Re: Floppies and disk/disc
Date: 2004-11-15 04:19 am (UTC)(On the other hand, I was disappointed to find that I don't seem to be able to run the rhn-applet or the laptop battery applet without having a Gnome panel, so reluctantly I've added a tiny one of these to my screen on my home machine. The irritating thing about it is that it doesn't seem to be able to place itself without user intervention under my fvwm setup.)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-16 05:30 am (UTC)Is that right or wrong? Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-16 05:38 am (UTC)Re: Floppies and disk/disc
Date: 2004-11-16 06:35 am (UTC)battery monitoring under FVWM
Date: 2004-11-17 04:57 am (UTC)Style "xapm" NoTitle, NoHandles, StaysOnTop, Sticky, WindowSkipList, BorderWidth 0
*FvwmButtons(Icon laptop_battery.xpm, Action 'Exec xapm -g -1-1 &')