Questions for English Majors

[Byron L. Sonne]

> My understanding of it is that disc is british and disk is american.  I
> personally use disc for spiral track media (usually optical) and disk
> for circular track media (usually magnetic).  

Interesting... I do kind of the same thing, except that I use 'disc' for 
CD and DVD, and 'disk' for floppies, etc. In fact, I think the only 
times I use 'disk' is specifically when referring to floppies.

'Disc', however, is the most correct if one follows the etymology of the 
word from the latin root 'discus', which effectively translates to 
'dish'. Though german does have the word 'diskette', so perhaps that's 
one avenue as to how 'disk' made it into english (which did start off as 
a german dialect).

Mind you, I am not an english major; I just play one on TV.
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