"THE BARBECUE SEASON HAS STARTED.
Never pour lighter fluid on the embers."
Swiss fire-prevention service

It's the start of the barbecue season here in Switzerland. The Spiessli are in the supermarket and the safety posters are all around town. The posters themselves are good. Pouring lighter fluid on a dying fire is a high-risk activity.

The image of the houses being grilled makes me think about the expression 'safe as houses'. The modern meaning given by all the dictionaries is 'very safe'. But there's more to this than meets the eye and a bit of delving reveals some interesting insight into our attitude to safety. Michael Quinion explains on his website World Wide Words that 'safe' used to include the idea of certainty. Thus 'safe' and 'sure' were pretty much interchangeable. It was once possible to write:

'He is safe enough for being hanged.'

This meaning of 'safe' has fallen by the wayside except in dialect and a few stock phrases such as a 'safe bet'. The expression 'safe as houses' was apparently also used in this sense of certainty. But what's so safe about houses? No one seems to know.

Uncertainty is an important component of risk. And risk is the opposite of safety. So we haven't altogether lost the link between safety and certainty.