• Kratzkopf@discuss.tchncs.de
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    9 days ago

    I was convinced I had seen the spelling ‘disk’ before, so I looked it up and found this (new to me) and interesting distinction on wiktionary.

    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.

    But also both forms seem to be usable for geometric disc shapes.

    • heartSagan5@lemmy.zip
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      9 days ago

      It’s probably a replication on our languages.

      For example, in Swedish… it’s spelled telefon, not telephone. I was trying to think of a word, where in Swedish, it’s a k whereas in English, it’s a c. Ah, yes - katten for cat, as in felix.

      Did you know that laser, as in laser disc, is likely from the Swedish word läser, which means to read.

      • Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works
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        7 days ago

        LASER is actually an acronym “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”

        But i have no idea if there was any swedish influence on the people who came up with name