The meaning of "dangerous"

[ritaxis]

When you say something is dangerous
do you mean

A.there is a very high likelihood of something bad happening

or

B.there is any possibility of something extremely -- lethally or near-lethally -- bad happening

or

C. there is a very high likelihood of something very very bad happening?

D. there is either a high likelihood of something bad happening, or any likelihood of something very bad happening or both?


(C is the most exclusive as it requires both a high probability and high stakes: D is the least exclusive as it allows high probability, high stakes or both)

I ask because I was reading a thing and I wasn't sure what I would have meant by saying something about that thing was dangerous, or whether I ought to use the word at all. I am being vague because in the eight and a half minutes it took me to put the question together I have forgotten what I was reading.

Comments

[carbonel]

I just had to take an online security course, and it didn't use the word "dangerous" at all. Instead, it talked about "risk" and "threat."

"Threat" is all the bad things that could happen to you, from getting a paper cut to being killed by a suicide bomber. You can't change a threat. It exists.

"Risk" is the likelihood of any of those bad things actually happening. There's a lot you can do to affect your risk level, like crossing the street to the lighted side to avoid creepy shapes in the darkness (an example the course was fond of).

So I would probably think of "dangerous" as a combination of threat and risk -- the actual probability of something bad, and how bad it might be. There are an awful lot of things that are high threat, but negligible risk -- which makes them negligible dangers.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

This is so interesting I'm going to devote a post to it.