Language Matters

"U.K. officials warned of smoking threat in '56", says a headline in my local paper [no web link found].

The substance of the story is that the British government, perhaps to protect tax revenues, ignored an early report on tobacco's dangers. But what interests me more is that headline.

A threat is an external peril over which you have no direct control. A risk is a peril you can control, and one you either willingly accept or deliberately reject — your choice.

Since cigarette manufacturers, for all their many faults, never put a gun to people's heads and ordered them to smoke, the headline writer should have used "risk," not "threat." That he or she didn't has everything to do with pushing a moralistic agenda, and nothing to do with accuracy.