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While reading through Etymology of the use of "Drive" to refer to a digital storage medium and its various mentions of floppy disks, it occurred to me that, while drive is in origin a reasonably good and logical word to use for digital storage media, floppy isn’t really a very apt adjective to describe thin, magnetic disks encased in flexible plastic cases.

I understand (or I suppose I should say assume) the reason these were described with an adjective in that general ballpark is that they are in general quite a bit softer than their contemporary counterparts: not only is the magnetic disk itself so thin that it is easily bendable, the plastic case itself (especially the 8” ones) is also not very rigid and can easily be bent and broken.

What I don’t understand is why floppy in particular was chosen.

I’m just about young enough that I’ve only ever practically worked with 3 ½” floppy disks myself, but I have handled (and disassembled) a few of the old 8” disks that Wikipedia says were the first of their kind, and while it’s true that the magnetic disk is softish and easy to bend, on the admittedly few occasions where I’ve taken them apart, even the disk inside was still rigid enough that I would never describe it as floppy. If you hold it out horizontally, it may bend down a good deal just from gravity, but it doesn’t just flap and flop around like truly floppy objects like a crocheted doily or a piece of paper would.

Considering the wealth of descriptive adjectives in English, why did the developers of the early floppy disks (or whoever first thought up the name) choose the particular adjective floppy to describe them, rather than one of the many arguably more accurate adjectives like soft, pliant, bendy/bendable, etc.? Were early, pre-release versions of the magnetic disks perhaps made from an even softer material that did in fact flop loosely about, rather than just bending easily? Or was someone not very big on semantic distinctions and just liked the word ‘floppy’?

What’s so specifically floppy about floppy disks?

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Janus Bahs Jacquet
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    the original 'floppy disks' were flexible, hence 'floppy': ..........................third slide –  Jul 02 '16 at 15:32
  • What @V0ight said. I think this is general reference. Showing my age, I can remember when we thought *eight-inch* floppy discs were the next big thing (but they very soon gave way to the five-inch version, which was somewhat less "floppy"). – FumbleFingers Jul 02 '16 at 16:04
  • @FumbleFingers What V0ight linked to doesn't answer the question at all—it shows a soft, bendy, flexible disk, exactly as I say in the question, but flexible and floppy are very different properties. “Flexible, hence floppy” doesn't make sense to me. If you can find a general reference that tells why they called them floppy as opposed to bendy or flexible (both much more accurate descriptions), I'd be happy to see it. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jul 02 '16 at 16:08
  • @Janus Bahs Jacquet what is your definition of floppy? –  Jul 02 '16 at 16:10
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    @Janus Bahs: If you describe something as "bendy, flexible", that would usually imply the flexibility was desirable, whereas "floppy" tends to be associated with things that have insufficient rigidity to do whatever they need to do without some kind of support. Why was it called a floppy disk? Because its recording medium is a disk of oxide-coated mylar, unlike the rigid aluminum disks and drums which had been used in previous storage devices. (1979). – FumbleFingers Jul 02 '16 at 16:13
  • @V0ight Standard dictionary definition, really: “tending to flop or hang loosely”; and flop: “fall, move, or hang in a loose and ungainly way”. In my experience, the disk in a floppy disk doesn't do that. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jul 02 '16 at 16:14
  • @FumbleFingers Well, that source at least tells me that flexible disk was also used, though floppy disk won out. I'm not sure I agree that ‘bendy’ (or even, necessarily, ‘flexible’) implies desirability, though ‘floppy’ definitely does imply undesirability. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jul 02 '16 at 16:33
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    Floppy sounds better than flexible. And it pluralizes nicely; floppies was way better than flexibles. – John Lawler Jul 02 '16 at 16:35
  • If you remove the disk from it's envelope and hold it by one edge it will "flop". (Especially if I'm holding it, given my tremor.) "Flop" is not a highly specific term, and covers a broad range of flexibility. – Hot Licks Jul 02 '16 at 18:04
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    In South Africa, 8" and 5" disks are called "floppy". The 3½" version is called a "stiffy" because it's significantly less flexible. I'm not sure that that name is any less undesirable (at least in other cultures). – Andrew Leach Jul 02 '16 at 18:06
  • @FumbleFingers Five *and a quarter* inch version. ;) – David Conrad Jul 02 '16 at 23:46
  • ... and "stiffy" was needed to distinguish between hard disks, because stiffies weren't hard disks, they were floppy disks, although they were hard relative to floppies. Makes sense? – jimm101 Oct 14 '16 at 20:12
  • I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because the questions is based on the OP's misunderstanding--floppy disks are physically floppy, except for the very last generation. – jimm101 Oct 14 '16 at 20:21
  • @jimm101 Did you read the question properly? The whole point is that even the older 5¼” and 8” floppies are *not* physically floppy. They're not rigid like the 3½” ones, no: they're soft, flexible, bendy, yielding, and lots of other things—but floppy they are not. A sock is floppy; Harry Potter’s de-boned arm is floppy; a dog’s tongue is floppy; a slinky is floppy. A floppy disk is not. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Oct 14 '16 at 22:45
  • @JanusBahsJacquet. Yup. Take off the shielding. – jimm101 Oct 14 '16 at 22:48
  • @jimm101 I have. I happen to have the actual disk from an 8” floppy here in my flat. When I hold it out horizontally, it very unequivocally does *not* flop limply down to a vertical position. It bends downward just like any other sheet of softish plastic, but it does not flop. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Oct 14 '16 at 22:52
  • @JanusBahsJacquet Yes... I have a few too. The part your thumb and fingers are holding is the sheathing on the disk. The part you can see through the oval window is the disk that the drive magnetically modifies. Without that sheathing, that internal magnetic sheet will point straight down to the ground. – jimm101 Oct 14 '16 at 22:56
  • @jimm101 Mine doesn't. Mine bends down approximately 20–30° or so, far from 90°. Mine is quite recent, from the late ’80s (or maybe even early ’90). If there are different types, made of different materials, some softer than others, that would be an absolutely satisfactory explanation. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Oct 14 '16 at 22:59
  • @JanusBahsJacquet Really? Maybe mine were of cheaper or have deteriorated over time. I get at least 85 degrees, starting at about an inch out from my thumb. I know my 5-1/4" from K-mart were the same, but those were definitely the cheapest I could find. – jimm101 Oct 14 '16 at 23:02
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    I remember 5¼ disks that were called flexidisks by their manufacturer, probably because they thought floppy disk didn't sound nice. – Mr Lister Nov 08 '18 at 17:02
  • alternatively: designed to be a flop, these unreliable pieces of garbage always produced crc errors for me (improper handling, I guess) – vectory Nov 15 '19 at 03:00
  • because they were floppy – Arm the good guys in America Nov 15 '19 at 09:20

3 Answers3

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There are 3 origins to choose from. None of the references look very solid.

The 5.25-inch disks were dubbed "floppy" because the diskette packaging was a very flexible plastic envelope, unlike the rigid case used to hold today's 3.5-inch diskettes.

References:
http://www.answers.com/Q/Why_is_a_floppy_disk_called_floppy
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/floppy-disk-drive1.htm

floppy disk (named so because they were flexible)

Reference from obsolete website royal.pingdom.com

Origin of floppy disk: in contrast to a hard disk, which is rigid

Reference:
http://www.yourdictionary.com/floppy-disk

In the end this article from IBM suggests the term originates from the flexibility of the medium, but it is never stated outright.

The team considered using magnetic tape first, but then, in a project code-named “Minnow,” they switched to using a flexible Mylar disk coated with magnetic material that could be inserted through a slot into a disk drive mechanism and spun on a spindle. “I had no idea how important it would become and how widespread,” recalls Warren L. Dalziel, the lead inventor of the floppy disk drive. The first floppies were 8-inch disks that were bare, but they got dirty easily, so the team packaged them in slim but durable envelopes equipped with an innovative dust-wiping element, making it possible to handle and store them easily.

Reference:
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/floppy/

Bookeater
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    +1 The first floppy I saw (either late '70s or very early '80s) was flexible enough so that the term floppy did not seem strange. – ab2 Jul 02 '16 at 19:03
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    This question seems to bounce around the net again and again. With, as you see, varied results. – Bookeater Jul 02 '16 at 19:09
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    The original floppy disks were 8 inches!! – Hot Licks Nov 15 '19 at 13:15
  • The disks after the 8" disks were the common 5.25" and called Mini-disks. These were far more common as the IBM PC came into use. Few users of these have ever run across the 8" papa disk. – Elliot Jul 04 '21 at 16:54
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Magnetic disks were traditionally made of cast aluminum, and were very hard and rigid (the same as the "hard drives" that one can still buy today, but much much larger). Think of circular saw blades without teeth.

In contrast, floppy disks were made of very thin plastic, which if held at the edge would bend under their own weight.

In use, they were kept flat by the force generated by their spinning.

For anyone familiar with standard hard drive disks, taking one out of its protective case revealed something so different from the precision machined aluminum platters, that they could hardly call them anything but "floppy". (Well, "flimsy" might have worked too, but that would also have implied unreliability.)

Ray Butterworth
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If you were anything like me and my uni friends, you would understand the term “floppy”... We pulled one apart to see what it was like inside when they first came out. We were young and immature enough to not just hold them and let them “bend”, we suspended them in our fingertips and shook them about like 3 year olds. The term “Floppy” was certainly appropriate! And when you consider the rigid disks called “records” that we all used to play our music, “floppy” was a novel term that caught on right away.

Carolyn
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