• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

SafetyRisk.net

Humanising Safety and Embracing Real Risk

  • Home
    • About
      • Privacy Policy
      • Contact
  • FREE
    • Slogans
      • Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Of All Time
      • When Slogans Don’t Work
      • CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
      • 500 OF THE BEST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
      • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
      • COVID-19 (Coronavirus, Omicron) Health and Safety Slogans and Quotes for the Workplace
      • Safety Acronyms
      • You know Where You Can Stick Your Safety Slogans
      • Sayings, Slogans, Aphorisms and the Discourse of Simple
      • Spanish Safety Slogans – Consignas de seguridad
      • Safety Slogans List
      • Road Safety Slogans 2023
      • How to write your own safety slogans
      • Why Are Safety Slogans Important
      • Safety Slogans Don’t Save Lives
      • 40 Free Safety Slogans For the Workplace
      • Safety Slogans for Work
    • FREE SAFETY eBOOKS
    • Free Hotel and Resort Risk Management Checklist
    • FREE DOWNLOADS
    • TOP 50
    • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS
    • Find a Safety Consultant
    • Free Safety Program Documents
    • Psychology Of Safety
    • Safety Ideas That Work
    • HEALTH and SAFETY MANUALS
    • FREE SAFE WORK METHOD STATEMENT RESOURCES
    • Whats New In Safety
    • FUN SAFETY STUFF
    • Health and Safety Training
    • SAFETY COURSES
    • Safety Training Needs Analysis and Matrix
    • Top 20 Safety Books
    • This Toaster Is Hot
    • Free Covid-19 Toolbox Talks
    • Download Page – Please Be Patient With Larger Files…….
    • SAFETY IMAGES, Photos, Unsafe Pictures and Funny Fails
    • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
    • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • Social Psychology Of Risk
    • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
    • Safety Psychology Terminology
    • Some Basics on Social Psychology & Risk
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk – Prof Karl E. Weick
    • The Psychology of Leadership in Risk
    • Conducting a Psychology and Culture Safety Walk
    • The Psychology of Conversion – 20 Tips to get Started
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk And Safety
    • Psychology and safety
    • The Psychology of Safety
    • Hot Toaster
    • TALKING RISK VIDEOS
    • WHAT IS SAFETY
    • THE HOT TOASTER
    • THE ZERO HARM DEBATE
    • SEMIOTICS
    • LEADERSHIP
  • Dr Long Posts
    • ALL POSTS
    • Learning Styles Matter
    • There is no Hierarchy of Controls
    • Scaffolding, Readiness and ZPD in Learning
    • What Can Safety Learn From Playschool?
    • Presentation Tips for Safety People
    • Dialogue Do’s and Don’ts
    • It’s Only a Symbol
    • Ten Cautions About Safety Checklists
    • Zero is Unethical
    • First Report on Zero Survey
    • There is No Objectivity, Deal With it!
  • THEMES
    • Risk Myths
    • Safety Myths
    • Safety Culture Silences
    • Safety Culture
    • Psychological Health and Safety
    • Zero Harm
    • Due Diligence
  • Free Learning
    • Introduction to SPoR – Free
    • FREE RISK and SAFETY EBOOKS
    • FREE ebook – Guidance for the beginning OHS professional
    • Free EBook – Effective Safety Management Systems
    • Free EBook – Lessons I Have Learnt
  • Psychological Safety
    • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
    • Managing psychosocial hazards at work
    • Psychological Safety – has it become the next Maslow’s hammer?
    • What is Psychosocial Safety
    • Psychological Safety Slogans and Quotes
    • What is Psychological Safety?
    • Understanding Psychological Terminology
    • Psycho-Social and Socio-Psychological, What’s the Difference?
    • Build a Psychologically Safe Workplace by Taking Risks and Analysing Failures
    • It’s not weird – it’s a psychological safety initiative!
You are here: Home / Workplace Safety / The Crazy Words of Health and Safety

The Crazy Words of Health and Safety

June 13, 2013 by Mark Taylor 3 Comments

The Crazy Words of Health and Safety

Mixed Messages Poor Communication MisunderstoodMark Taylor recently started another very interesting discussion on the LinkedIn Forum OHS Professionals Australia: The Crazy Words of Health and Safety. Mark recently told me that he had purposely deleted all the stuff collected after 25 years in the Safety game in order to start again and get it right – Legend!!!! You should see our list of Health and Safety Acronyms (HRA’s) – WTF?!!!  https://safetyrisk.net/safety-acronyms/

 

Can anyone tell me who invented these phrases and why?

Why do we use the words “Near Miss” when the words don’t really exist?

Why do we endeavour to achieve ‘Zero Harm’ and then talk about ‘Managing Risk?’

Why do we complain about being portrayed as Policemen and then undertake ‘Accident Investigations?’

Why do we use the phrases Risk Management and Hazard Identification, when the majority of incidents are caused by behaviour?

It’s no wonder that health and safety has got such a bad reputation, when we continue to use all these confusing and often negative words?

One of the responses:

I think one word in your title said it all, “Crazy”. The trouble is people sometimes like to use acronyms and definitions to try and justify very simple task. OHS is not difficult it’s the people who make a science out of it that are the problem.
I’m always shocked at the number of different definitions there are for accidents and incidents, I can list at least 60 variations, no wonder people get confused.

  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
  • More about Mark
Mark Taylor

Mark Taylor

Director at Safety Matters (NZ) Ltd
Mark Taylor

Latest posts by Mark Taylor (see all)

  • Building High Performance Safety Cultures - December 27, 2022
  • Counter Intuitive Safety - August 25, 2022
  • Build a Psychologically Safe Workplace by Taking Risks and Analysing Failures - April 29, 2020
  • Enculturing Safety - January 17, 2019
  • Groundhog Safety Day - February 28, 2017
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor is a key note speaker and trainer who has spent the majority of his career educating and helping people to take health and safety seriously. Over a period of twenty years he has worked across a broad spectrum of industries around the world and has developed a number of innovative safety tools that are now common in many workplaces. Mark continues to see things differently and push the boundaries in safety management beyond traditional systems and approaches, which he feels are dated and limited.

Please share our posts

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Workplace Safety Tagged With: crazy words, health and safety, safety acronyms, safety communication, Safety Overkill

Reader Interactions

Do you have any thoughts? Please share them below Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Search and Discover More on this Site

Never miss a post - Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,495 other subscribers

Introduction to SPOR – FREE!!

SAFETY MYTHS SERIES

The Mythic Symbology of Safety

Posture Myths and Holistic Ergonomics

Safety Mythbusters

Don’t Be Emotional! Another Safety Myth

Tackling the Challenge of Heuristics in Safety

The Myth of Normal

NEW! Free Download

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

Recent Comments

  • Rob long on Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual)
  • Matt Thorne on Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual)
  • Anonymous on Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual)
  • Jason on How Bias Inhibits Learning in Safety
  • Rob Long on How Bias Inhibits Learning in Safety
  • Admin on How Bias Inhibits Learning in Safety
  • Rob Long on 400,000 Free Downloads
  • Gustavo Saralegui on 400,000 Free Downloads
  • Rob long on To Err is Human, You Better Believe It
  • Wynand on To Err is Human, You Better Believe It
  • Rob Long on To Err is Human, You Better Believe It
  • simon cassin on To Err is Human, You Better Believe It
  • Rob Long on Records of safety activities: evidence of safety or non-compliance?
  • Matt Thorne on Free Online Workshops
  • Rob long on No Good Reason to Follow Reason
  • Brian Edwin Darlington on No Good Reason to Follow Reason
  • Risk Diversity on Book Launch – For the Love of Zero – in Portuguese
  • Rob Long on No Good Reason to Follow Reason
  • Risk Culture Builder on No Good Reason to Follow Reason
  • Mark Taylor on All Things Must Pass in Risk

FREE eBOOK DOWNLOADS

Footer

VIRAL POST – The Risk Matrix Myth

Top Posts & Pages. Sad that most are so dumb but this is what safety luves

  • Free Safety Moments and Toolbox Talk Examples, Tips and Resources
  • Road Safety Slogans 2023
  • 500 OF THE BEST WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
  • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual)
  • How Bias Inhibits Learning in Safety
  • Safety Acronyms
  • What is SPoR?
  • 15 Safety Precautions When Working With Electricity
  • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators

Recent Posts

  • Welcome to the Nightmare, Safety Creates its Own Minefield (as usual)
  • Getting the Balance Right in Tackling Risk
  • What is SPoR?
  • How Bias Inhibits Learning in Safety
  • Afraid to Let Go of What Doesn’t Work in Safety
  • When You Don’t Know What to do in Safety, Have Another Blitz!!!
  • Gloves and Glasses Compliance
  • A Case of Desensitisation – What Would You Do?
  • How to Leave the Safety Industry
  • The Mythic Symbology of Safety
  • Dark Waters, The True Story of DuPont and Zero
  • 400,000 Free Downloads
  • Am I stupid? I didn’t think of that…
  • Don’t Look Now Safety, Your Metaphor is Showing
  • Ratio Delusions and Heinrich’s Hoax
  • To Err is Human, You Better Believe It
  • Culture as a Wicked Problem, for Safety
  • Safety Leadership Training
  • Cultural Orientation in Risk
  • The Stanford Experiment and The Social Psychology of Risk
  • Objectivity, Audits and Attribution When Calculating Risk
  • Records of safety activities: evidence of safety or non-compliance?
  • Zero, The Seeking of Infinity
  • Safety Leadership Essentials
  • What Can Indiana Jones Tell Us About Culture
  • Safety as a Worldview
  • The Loathing of Limits
  • Culture Cannot be Framed Through Safety
  • Free Online Workshops
  • Safety Culture–Hudson’s Model
  • Book Launch – For the Love of Zero – in Portuguese
  • Advancing Backwards in Safety
  • The ‘Noise’ of Safety, Silence and Practicing of Mindfulness
  • All Things Must Pass in Risk
  • I’m just not that into safety anymore
  • Sticks and Stones and the Nonsense of Zero Harm
  • Courting Infallibility in Safety
  • Indicators of Risk
  • What Can Safety Learn From Playschool?
  • No Good Reason to Follow Reason
  • Just as Well Culture Doesn’t Listen to Safety
  • What Are the Benefits Of Social Psychology of Risk?
  • Short-Sighted Lenses by Safety
  • Is Safety the Empire of Non-Sense?
  • No Wonder Safety is Confused About Culture
  • Building High Performance Safety Cultures
  • Understanding iCue, a Visual, Verbal, Semiotic Method for Tackling Risk
  • On Culture and Safety
  • Focus on ‘Meeting’ people, not legislation – a path to risk maturity
  • The Moral Harm of the Zero Cult

VIRAL POST!!! HOW TO QUIT THE SAFETY INDUSTRY

FEATURED POSTS

Safety and The Sunk Cost Fallacy

Social Sensemaking – Book Launch Dates & Venues Confirmed

Is Safetyism Destroying a Generation?

Impacts of Cognitive Dissonance in the Workplace

Study The Psychology of Risk

Understanding Just Culture

Dumbs for Safety

Themes and Concepts in Risk – Requests

The Illusion Of Hazard Identification

Defining Safety

Beware the Cult of Denial

Safety Isn’t Sexy, and it Shouldn’t Be!

Kinesthetic Safety

People are not Rats–Moving Beyond Behaviour Based Safety

No Ethic of Hope in Zero

How was your break?

Why we make mistakes

Safety Surveying What You Already Know

Stand Behind The Yellow Line – Do Engineering Controls Affect Risk?

How Risky is Your Safety Spin?

Clarity Enabled

Semiotics and Unconscious Communication in Safety

Safety Giveaways–Free Stuff!

Risky Conversations, The Law, Social Psychology and Risk

Y is Being and Doing

Three Cheers for the Safety Literalists

Non-Conscious Safety

Coronavirus and the Dunny Paper Effect

I’m Concerned That We Can’t See The Safety Forest For The Safety Trees

Hoodwinked by Heinrich

Daydreaming and Safety

Developing Our Inner Introversion

The Seduction to Simplify Safety

Ethics, Morality and an Ethic of Risk

Positives and Negatives in Dialectic in Safety

Is Choice The First Casualty in the Worker’s Compensation War?

Safety Investigation – Whodunit?

Zero Suicide and the Discourse of Denial

Risk and Safety as a Social Psychological Problem

The Last Thing is, Don’t Start with Safety

More Posts from this Category

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,495 other subscribers

How we pay for the high cost of running of this site – try it for free on your site

WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY?

What is Psychological Safety at Work?