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Is "risky" an acceptable spelling of "risqué" or "risque" (suggestive of sexual impropriety), such as in this article?
Selena Gomez has posed braless in a risky and sultry new photo-shoot for the British magazine British InStyle’s December edition.
I looked at Wiktionary and Oxford Dictionaries, and they don't mention that meaning in their definitions of "risky". However, this answer states that the OED has it as a meaning of "risky".
Risky is a fully Anglicized version of the French risqué. It's comparatively rare now†, but from the 1880s down to the end of WWII it was far more common to write of risky stories and jokes than of risqué ones.
—Google Ngrams
(I do not include uses with risque, which outstrip all of these and really are mis-spellings.)
This was not mere journalistic illiteracy; here are a couple of quotations from unimpeachably literary figures:
The diplomatist told me risky stories all through dinner so it was quite natural that this cheek should blush fiery red. —Somerset Maugham, Lady Frederick, 1907
I was wild too, and I admit. I didn’t mind for anything, not even for his squeezing and pushing me on the stairs, or his risky jokes. —Joyce Cary, Herself Remembered, 1941
The first speaker is an aristocratic, the second a servant who has married into the respectable middle class and then abandoned it to become the model and mistress of the artist Gulley Jimson.
† But then so is risqué; in today's more relaxed climate we are far less titillated by the mere mention of unspecified impropriety than our Victorian, Edwardian and Georgian ancestors were.
The journalist misspelled risqué
Selena Gomez has posed braless in a risky [and sultry] new photo-shoot...
The same celebrity news is reported in Highsnobiety, but there risquè is written correctly.
Selena Gomez Strips Down for Risqué Album Artwork
Looking on the Internet, I found no reputable website that suggested risky is a spelling variant of risqué: the two terms mean two different things, and have two different pronunciations.
The adjective risky (pronounced ris-kee) means dangerous or hazardous. The adjective risqué (pronounced ris-kay) means sexually daring, suggestive, or indecent.
Examples:
- Much to the concern of their parents, most children enjoy risky play involving great speed and heights.
- Despite her rather risqué outfit, Kathryn was really a rather quiet and conventional woman.
grammarist (unfortunately, it's become infested with sponsored ads)
Risky vs risqué
Risky means containing the possibility or likeliness of danger or failure. Risky is an adjective, related adjectives are riskier and riskiest. The adverb form is riskily, the noun form is riskiness. Risky appears around 1825, taking the place of riskful.
Risqué means improper, borderline indecent. Risqué is an adjective, it appears in the English language in the 1860s, borrowed from the French risqué, past participle of risquer, meaning tending toward impropriety. Risky and risqué are pronounced differently, risky is pronounced RISkee, and risqué holds on to its French pronunciation, risKAY.
Paul Brians' Common Errors in English Usage
RISKY/RISQUÉ
People unfamiliar with the French-derived word “risqué” (‘slightly indecent”) often write “risky” by mistake. Bungee-jumping is risky, but nude bungee-jumping is risqué.
risqué adjective 1. daringly close to indelicacy or impropriety; off-color:
a risqué story.Can be confused
risky, risqué.
An Explanation for this spelling error
There used to be a time when editors hired proofreaders and copy editors to weed out spelling and punctuation errors (etc.) before an article graced the pages of a magazine or newspaper.
But nowadays, writers and journalists, for financial reasons and laziness, are increasingly reliant on spell-checkers. The adjective risky which appears in Inquisitr is not spelt (spelled) wrong, and that is probably why it was allowed to pass through. Nobody had spotted the error.
One of EL&U's most esteemed contributors, Sven Yargs, is a freelance copy-editor and has mentioned this problem several times.
Is “make due” now considered acceptable?
- What happens when you spell "make do" as "make due" in an online article? If you notice it later, or if someone points it out to you, and you don't like the idea that some percentage of your readers will think that you don't know how to spell "make do" correctly, you simply go back into the article and change the spelling. No permanent harm, no foul. And let's face it: It's quite a luxury to keep a bunch of editors and proofreaders on staff just to intercept those types of problems preemptively. That's why, in the past couple of decades, copy editors and proofreaders have become the whooping cranes and California condors of the publishing industry.
Is it “chalk it up to” or “chock it up to”?
- A Google Books search finds more than 40 unique matches for "chock it up to" in which the author presumably meant to say "chalk it up to" but either spelled chalk wrong or didn't know the correct traditional spelling of the idiom. Tellingly, the vast majority of these 40+ instances come from the past ten years, suggesting either that chock is emerging as a legitimate variant spelling of chalk in this situation or that many publishers no longer employ copy editors to find and correct mistakes of this type.
No. Risky and risqué do not have the same meaning.
Something that is risky is dangerous, or prone to loss. "Investing in junk bonds can be lucrative, but is risky."
Something that is risqué is in questionable taste, especially in a sexual way. "She wore a dress that was a little risqué for the office party."
risqué in the English sense of naughty, sexy, salacious seems to translate to the French scabreux (among many others)
Wicktionary notes that risk and risqué share the same French root risquer - to risk - although it notes that the English use is a borrowing or loanword from French.
Might your quote be playing it straight in saying the photo might in fact be risky to her cultivated image or perhaps her career?
Yes, OED does give the definition "risqué" for the word risky, with an example from
2004 C. Bazalgette in M. Bonham Casino p. xi, She loved to show off and to tell risky stories.
It seems the story is using risky with this meaning.
There is little doubt as to the word's etymology:
Compare French risqué fraught with risk (probably 1690), improper, unsuitable, shocking (1839 or earlier), use as adjective of past participle of risquer risk v. In sense 3 after either risqué adj. or its etymon French risqué.
Risky was the first of the pair to be recorded in English.
OED
risky, adj.
- Involving the possibility of injury, loss, or other adverse or unwelcome circumstance; dangerous; hazardous; fraught with risk.
1813 R. Mayo View Anc. Geogr. & Anc. Hist. iii. vii. 59 The Tudors were equal to the occasion, and, trading on the desire of both sides for friendship, did not commit themselves to any expensive or risky policy.
On the other hand "risqué", in its primary meaning, did not appear for a further 50-odd years, and follows a Victorian tradition (that still continues) of using the French word for anything sexual.
risqué, adj.
Origin: A borrowing from French. Etymon: French risqué.
Etymology: < French risqué (see risky adj.). Compare risky adj.
Slightly indecent and liable to shock, esp. by being sexually suggestive. Cf. risky adj. 3.
1867 ‘Ouida’ Under Two Flags II. iv. 121 She..sang..the most wicked and risqué of her slang songs.
Going back to "risky" = "risqué" (as per the sense 3 of "risky" mentioned above) the first example is interesting:
1881 Daily News 25 July 2/6 He has carefully eliminated all the risky Gallicisms to which..the Palais Royal artists gave such point.
This example is self-referential - of course, it should be "all the risqué Gallicisms" but the writer has eliminated them.
The examples that follow do nothing to dispel the idea of "eliminating Gallicisms"
1920 D. H. Lawrence Women in Love xxix. 484 Loerke was everywhere at once, like a gnome, suggesting drinks for the women, making an obscure, slightly risky joke with the men, confusing and mystifying the waiter.
1974 Times 7 June 18/6 Those who slept missed some risky jokes.
2004 C. Bazalgette in M. Bonham Casino p. xi She loved to show off and to tell risky stories.
The OED states what has been done. It does not necessarily approve.
So, to answer the question,
Is "risky" an acceptable spelling of "risqué" or "risque"?
It depends on what you mean by "acceptable." I would say "No, it isn't as it could give rise to misunderstandings as the two words are distinct in their primary meaning. Let's keep them distinct."
People unfamiliar with the French-derived word “risqué” (‘slightly indecent”) often write “risky” by mistake. Bungee-jumping is risky, but nude bungee-jumping is risqué. (Paul Brians, Common Errors in English Usage)
The article you cite blurs the line between this use, and the use of risky as dangerous.
