OK, doing a TT search and disregarding instances on this thread "risk adverse" gets four results, three of them in Your Choice, compared to over twenty for "risk averse", mostly in the travel branches.
So perhaps I'm over-reacting, although it could be that YC is a better bellwether for general changes in usage than the more thoughtful travel branches
I think it's a real concern, but I think it's more likely to show up in the phrase "not averse to" than, say, "risk averse."
On TT, "not adverse to" gets 20 hits, while the correct "not averse to" gets 22 hits, in both cases spread over the branches. That's a pretty poor showing for TT'ers; an unscientific google search shows the correct usage outweighs the incorrect one by about 12:1.
A google search restricted by region (USA, Australia, UK) shows the wrong usage occurs about one-third of the time in the USA, one-quarter of the time in Australia and one-fifth of the time in the UK. So I am editing this post to remove the reference to wondering whether it's a big deal in the USA.
CK
Edited by: chriskean1
Theirs nothing to worry about, we should of expected something like this.
Anyway, it's sometimes comforting that there aren't only typical mistakes by Russian/Spanish/Korean/Slovene speakers, but also typical English native speakers' mistakes.
It alarmed me because the posters using "risk adverse" seemed articulate and intelligent.
It's just something I've noticed creeping in , not just on TT
the posters using "risk adverse" seemed articulate and intelligent.
On Your Choice? Are you quite sure?