Re: silent semantic changes with reiser4

Paul Jackson
2004-09-03T23:47:00Z

> Ok, Planty of times I did asked Brits and Americans if there's any
> difference. Neither did say that either disc or disk is more correct.

>From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_or_disc

Disk or Disc?

The divergence in spelling is due in part to the way in which
the words originated. Disk came into the English language in
the mid-17th century, and was modelled on words such as whisk;
disc arose some time later, and was based on the original Latin
root discus. In the 19th century, disc became the conventional
spelling for audio recordings made on a flat plate, such as
the gramophone record; this usage gave rise to the modern term
disc jockey. Early BBC technicians differentiated between disks
(in-house transcription records) and discs (the colloquial term
for commercial gramophone records, or what the BBC dubbed CGRs).

By the 20th century, the c-spelling was more popular in
British English, while the k-spelling was preferred in American
English. In the 1940s, when the American company IBM pioneered
the first hard disk storage devices, the k-spelling was used. In
1979 the European company Philips, along with Sony, developed the
compact disc medium; here, the c-spelling was chosen, possibly
because of the predominating British spelling, or because the
compact disc was seen as a successor to the analogue disc record.

Whatever their heritage, in computer jargon today it is common
for the k-spelling to refer mainly to magnetic storage devices,
while the c-spelling is customary for optical media such as the
compact disc and similar technologies. Even in the computing
field, however, the terms are used inconsistently; software
documentation often uses the k-spelling exclusively.

--
I won't rest till it's the best ...
Programmer, Linux Scalability
Paul Jackson <pj@sgi.com> 1.650.933.1373