- published: 05 Jun 2016
- views: 8789
Risk is the potential that a chosen action or activity (including the choice of inaction) will lead to a loss (an undesirable outcome). The notion implies that a choice having an influence on the outcome exists (or existed). Potential losses themselves may also be called "risks". Almost any human endeavor carries some risk, but some are much more risky than others.
The Oxford English Dictionary cites the earliest use of the word in English (in the spelling of risque) as from 1621, and the spelling as risk from 1655. It defines risk as:
(Exposure to) the possibility of loss, injury, or other adverse or unwelcome circumstance; a chance or situation involving such a possibility.
For the sociologist Niklas Luhmann the term 'risk' is a neologism that appeared with the transition from traditional to modern society. "In the Middle Ages the term risicum was used in highly specific contexts, above all sea trade and its ensuing legal problems of loss and damage." In the vernacular languages of the 16th century the words rischio and riezgo were used. This was introduced to continental Europe, through interaction with Middle Eastern and North African Arab traders. In the English language the term risk appeared only in the 17th century, and "seems to be imported from continental Europe." When the terminology of risk took ground, it replaced the older notion that thought "in terms of good and bad fortune." Niklas Luhmann (1996) seeks to explain this transition: "Perhaps, this was simply a loss of plausibility of the old rhetorics of Fortuna as an allegorical figure of religious content and of prudentia as a (noble) virtue in the emerging commercial society."
Your eyes are gonna drown in your wine glass
Your mind is skippin' stones over your past
I know better than to ask you "Why love?'
When you begin to believe you're on lies then,
They'll keep swingin' long as you keep fightin'
Until you ruin a perfectly good night, my love
My love, you're not listening
My love, you're not listening
My love, try listening/for the voice that's whispering
to you, my love
Those tears are ten years old
That script has long been sold
That story is sick of bein' told
Say goodbye love
It's time to learn some new lines
They're already rollin' around in your mind
Don't waste yet another life, my love
My love, you're not listening/My love, you're not
listening
My love, try listening/for the voice that's whispering
to you, my love
My love…
My love…
My love, you're not listening
My love, try listening