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Discussion Groups / English Usage / May 2009What is a "computerized disk"?
New York Times: "The Telegraph's editors, with daily banner headlines pummeling members of Parliament like a boxer raining blows on a helpless opponent, have declined to comment on reports that they paid about $140,000 for computerized disks containing more than a million individual expense claims by members of Parliament over the past over the past four years ... " I believe I know what they are saying; they acquired some disks wherefrom data can be retrieved by use of computer equipment. I think what it actually says is that the disks contain computer machinery elements that allow them (the disks) to accomplish their tasks. I'd also like to hear about when "discs" became "disks"; I certainly wasn't paying attention.  SignatureFrank ess >New York Times: > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >individual expense claims by members of Parliament over the past over >the past four years ... " "computerized disks" seems to be a muddling of "computer disk" and "computerized information". It was originally described as a single disk: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/may/08/mps-expenses-telegraph-checqueboo k-journalism Patrick Wintour[1] The Guardian, Friday 8 May 2009 The Daily Telegraph last night refused to disclose whether, and how much, it had paid for the computer disk stolen from the parliamentary fees office that has been hawked around newspaper offices over the past month. .... Benedict Brogan, the paper's assistant editor, declined to say last night whether there had been a payment. However, it is widely accepted that a conduit operating across newspaper offices had recently been seeking over £150,000 for the full disk, which reveals every expense claim by every MP over the past four years. .... [1] Brother of Anna Wintour, editor of American Vogue. >I believe I know what they are saying; they acquired some disks >wherefrom data can be retrieved by use of computer equipment. I think [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >I'd also like to hear about when "discs" became "disks"; I certainly >wasn't paying attention. It happened before we were born. Some quotes from OED. The discus: 1715-20 POPE Iliad II. 941 In empty air their sportive jav'lins throw, Or whirl the disk. 1727-51 CHAMBERS Cycl., Disc or Disk, Discus, in antiquity, a kind of round quoit..about a foot over, used by the antients in their exercises. 1728 NEWTON Chronol. Amended 36 The Disc was one of the five games called the Quinquertium. 1791 COWPER Iliad II. 948 His soldiers hurled the disk or bent the bow. A thin circular plate: 1803 Med. Jrnl. X. 26 Volta constructed a pile made up of disks of different metals with layers of cloth interposed. 1827 FARADAY Chem. Manip. xxiii. 568 Clipping fragments of plate glass into circular discs. Computer data storage: 1952 Electr. Engin. Aug. 745/1 The new memory stores data in the form of magnetic pulses on both sides of thin metal disks. Ibid. 745/2 When the heads are in position, the disk is rotated past them while information, in the form of coded magnetic pulses, is recorded or read out. 1956 Proc. 9th Western Joint Computer Conf. 42/1 The information is stored, magnetically, on 50 rotating disks. 1964 T. W. MCRAE Impact of Computers on Accounting i. 8 This machine stored its records on the juke-box principle, that is 48 disks were stored one above the other and an arm moving up and down the side of the file was able to interrogate any disk record within about half a second. 1964, etc. [see MAGNETIC a. 1]. 1969 Jrnl. Assoc. Computing Machinery XVI. 617 A multi-head disk is a disk with two or more recording heads, each of which is capable of independent movement. 1982 What's New in Computing Nov. 12/4 Back up for the discs is provided on a tape streamer, tape cartridge or floppy. Then three more: one "disc" and two "disk". SignaturePeter Duncanson, UK (in alt.usage.english) >>I'd also like to hear about when "discs" became "disks"; I certainly >>wasn't paying attention. [quoted text clipped - 43 lines] > >Then three more: one "disc" and two "disk". I think "disk" is more usual for the computer sense, at least in the UK. However, if it is an optical disk using one of the CD family of formats, it is a "compact disc", not a "compact disk", that being a trade mark. SignatureDon Aitken Mail to the From: address is not read. To email me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com" >>>I'd also like to hear about when "discs" became "disks"; I certainly >>>wasn't paying attention. [quoted text clipped - 50 lines] >formats, it is a "compact disc", not a "compact disk", that being a >trade mark. Similarly a DVD is a "disc". SignaturePeter Duncanson, UK (in alt.usage.english) "Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <mail@peterduncanson.net> wrote >>I think "disk" is more usual for the computer sense, at least in the >>UK. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > >Similarly a DVD is a "disc". Now if only we could be sure what the V stands for. SignatureJames >"Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <mail@peterduncanson.net> wrote > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > >Now if only we could be sure what the V stands for. Quite. V is a versatile initial. SignaturePeter Duncanson, UK (in alt.usage.english) James Hogg filted: >"Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <mail@peterduncanson.net> wrote >> >>Similarly a DVD is a "disc". > >Now if only we could be sure what the V stands for. DVD, referring to the electronificated media, doesn't stand for anything.... It is, however, still an accepted abbreviation for both "Dick Van Dyke" and "Death Valley Days"....r SignatureA pessimist sees the glass as half empty. An optometrist asks whether you see the glass more full like this?...or like this? > >Now if only we could be sure what the V stands for. > > DVD, referring to the electronificated media, doesn't stand for anything.... Direct-to-Video Disc seems a likely candidate. The point is that DVDs are formatted differently than CDs: the former hold much more digital data. SignatureDon Phillipson Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada) [it had been written:] >>> Now if only we could be sure what the V stands for. >> [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > The point is that DVDs are formatted differently > than CDs: the former hold much more digital data. DVD = digital video disc per M-W Online SignatureSkitt (AmE) Skitt filted: >[it had been written:] > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] >DVD = digital video disc >per M-W Online Should also say "obs."...that's what it stood for when they first came on the market...then someone wanted to emphasize that you could put things other than video on them and decided it had to stand for "digital versatile disc"...now, by agreement of the people who agree on such things, it *officially* doesn't stand for anything....r SignatureA pessimist sees the glass as half empty. An optometrist asks whether you see the glass more full like this?...or like this? >James Hogg filted: >> [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >It is, however, still an accepted abbreviation for both "Dick Van Dyke" and >"Death Valley Days"....r And occasionally for "David Van Day" who, Wikipedia says: was an English singer and media personality, He appeared on the reality TV show "I'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here!" in Nov/Dec 2008 and in spite of that exposure failed to revive himself as a media personality. SignaturePeter Duncanson, UK (in alt.usage.english) >However, if it is an optical disk using one of the CD family of >formats, it is a "compact disc", not a "compact disk", that being a >trade mark. Not that anyone who isn't a licensee is obliged to spell it that way.... -GAWollman SignatureGarrett A. Wollman | The real tragedy of human existence is not that we are wollman@csail.mit.edu| nasty by nature, but that a cruel structural asymmetry Opinions not those | grants to rare events of meanness such power to shape of MIT or CSAIL. | our history. - S.J. Gould, Ten Thousand Acts of Kindness "Frank ess" <frank@fshe2fs.com> Whose moving finger wrote, and cheerfully Clicked "Send" to wing the words below to me, Is powerless to cancel half a line: 'Tis stored on Google sempiternally. >New York Times: > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] >I'd also like to hear about when "discs" became "disks"; I certainly >wasn't paying attention. Even more curious is how the same Latin (originally Greek) word has come into English in so many forms: "discus", "disc/disk", "dish" and "dais". SignatureJames On 20 May 2009, James Hogg wrote > "Frank ess" <frank@fshe2fs.com> >> I'd also like to hear about when "discs" became "disks"; I >> certainly wasn't paying attention. > > Even more curious is how the same Latin (originally Greek) word > has come into English in so many forms: "discus", "disc/disk", > "dish" and "dais". Discuss, using examples. SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed >On 20 May 2009, James Hogg wrote >> "Frank ess" <frank@fshe2fs.com> [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > >Discuss, using examples. Examples: successful slimmers. SignaturePeter Duncanson, UK (in alt.usage.english) > Even more curious is how the same Latin (originally Greek) word > has come into English in so many forms: "discus", "disc/disk", > "dish" and "dais". Consider "fractal", "fraction", "fractious", "fracture", "frag", "fragile", "fragment", "frail", "frangent", and "frangible". SignatureMark Brader | "Don't you want to... see my ID? ... I could be anybody." Toronto | "No you couldn't, sir. This is Information Retrieval." msb@vex.net | --Brazil >I'd also like to hear about when "discs" became "disks"; I certainly >wasn't paying attention. About the time that CDs were introduced, "disks" was used for magnetic ones, like floppies, stiffies and hard disks, while "discs" was used for optical discs, like CDs, DVDs etc. SignatureSteve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk >>I'd also like to hear about when "discs" became "disks"; I certainly >>wasn't paying attention. > > About the time that CDs were introduced, "disks" was used for > magnetic ones, like floppies, stiffies and hard disks, while "discs" > was used for optical discs, like CDs, DVDs etc. Apparently there were people (and companies) who used "disks" for fixed media (i.e., "hard" drives), but they were certainly "discs" to me. As were frisbees and the sun. The only things that were "disks" were those that were, in full, "diskettes". At least, that's my memory. Checking the indexes to some of my books, I see that both Gorin's 1981 _Introduction to DECSYSTEM-20 Assembly Language Programming_ and Goldberg and Robson's 1983 _Smalltalk-80_ use "disk". And the Unix commands "du" and "df" apparently stood for "disk usage" and "disk free" back to the beginning. I wonder where I picked up the (apparently spurious) distinction. I see both in use (for example, I see a Burroughs patent for a "disc data store"). Checking the _NY Times_, Control Data was advertising for people with experience selling "memory disc tapes" in 1975, and an article on IBM said that they were cutting prices on "certain magnetic tape disc storage units" that same year. Going up to September, 1982, when I hit college, I see an ad for an electronics store that was selling "Apple II plus 48K" systems that had two systems that came with "Apple Disc Drive II" and one that came with "Apple Disk Drive II".[1] The ad also talked about Commodore VIC-20s with "disc" drives. All of these would have been floppy drives, though, and I see that the Apple floopy drive actually says "disk" on the front. The next month, MicroAge was was advertising an Apple show where they were going to be showing "the Apple III with its Profile hard-disc storage system". [1] 48K computer, 140 KB floppy storage, 12" green monitor, and Visicalc: $1,979. $4,359 in 2008 dollars. Without Visicalc, but with an Okidata Microline printer and Screen Writer II word processor software, it went up to $2,325 ($5,121). Without any software, but without saying "48K" is was "Only" $1,799.95 ($3,965) SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |I need to get a new colander. My 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |old one has holes in it. Palo Alto, CA 94304 kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com (650)857-7572 http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ |
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