disk versus disc

[Jay West]

CCN wrote...
> Disc is incorrect unless we're talking about a flying disc, in which case
> it's slang for discus.  (Although in eight years of competing in track and
> field in high school and college, I never heard anyone say "my event is 
> the
> disc".)

Wholly incorrect...

Disc/Disk is NOT a US/UK thing. Disc is perfectly acceptable. Nor does disc 
and disk inherently refer to different types of media or drives (at least, 
not until much later & modern MISuse bastardized it with the CD 
connotation).

At one point (originally), BOTH versions were common. The greek origin is 
diskos, the latin root is discus. Both are considered acceptable, however, 
one or the other is generally chosen in a given field of study. HP (and 
others) refer to disc, DEC (and others) refer to disk. Medical texts always 
go with disc, as do most engineering texts I'm familiar with. I'm sure 
there's other fields that standardized on "disk".

Mass media (printed) doesn't generally like two different spellings for the 
same thing, and over time one becomes more common. Not because it's more 
right, but it's just what the media feels they need to do.

Jay