Is it disc or disk?

It is always tricky recognising US English spellings and British English spellings with words like these.

Whether we like it or not, much of our language is now heavily influenced by US English spellings.

Examples:

  • When referring to a disk in the IT/computer sense, we use ‘disk’. Maybe you recall the little ‘diskette’ drives, years ago – those were floppy disks.
  • Generally, when referring to a circular-shaped thing, we use ‘disc’.
  • Hence, ‘computer disk’, but ‘compact disc’.

By the way, many people are unsure how to write ‘CD-ROM’ – it uses the hyphen, as shown. Many are also unaware that the acronym means ‘compact disc read-only memory’, although when did you last see one of those?

Did you know that DVD stands for ‘digital versatile disc’? ..another technology now gradually becoming redundant!