ABSTRACT
Various publications inform us that the term risk entered our vocabulary in the 17th century (Breakwell, 2014; Kemshall, 2003) and was associated with definitions like ‘peril’ and ‘danger’. Kemshall (2003) goes on to explain the usage of the term risk was also associated with gambling in terms of ‘taking a chance’. It is easy to see how this transformed into mathematical models of probabilities and associated statistical analysis to quantify risk and harm which became so favoured in the commercial world, particularly the insurance industry, where risk calculations were later extended to people.
