Does 危机 really mean both crisis and opportunity? A lot of people, mostly those who haven't studied Chinese, like to claim something along the lines of 

"In Chinese, the word for crisis 危机, also bears the meaning of opportunity."

This is usually said right before or after making a remark that a crisis can also be a possibility. 

My thought on this is that it was originally written as 危险机会 (or 危险的机会), meaning a "chance of danger", or "possibility of danger". And then, as in many other cases, character 2 and 4 dropped, to make the word 危机. In this way, it has become a misunderstanding that the word means both "danger" and "opportunity", as both of these words are represented.

My questions are


Am I totally wrong?
Do Chinese speakers really think of 危机 as both "crisis" and "opportunity"?
Do Chinese speakers use 危机 to describe some kinds of crises (possibly fortunate ones, less severe etc), and use another word for other kinds?
Victor Mair has an essay answering your question directly:
Danger + opportunity ≠ crisis, how a misunderstanding about Chinese characters has led many astray.

[...] Like most Mandarin words, that for “crisis” (wēijī) consists of two syllables that are written with two separate characters, wēi (危) and jī (機/机).
[...] While it is true that wēijī does indeed mean “crisis” and that the wēi syllable of wēijī does convey the notion of “danger,” the jī syllable of wēijī most definitely does not signify “opportunity.”
The jī of wēijī, in fact, means something like “incipient moment; crucial point (when something begins or changes).” Thus, a wēijī is indeed a genuine crisis, a dangerous moment, a time when things start to go awry. A wēijī indicates a perilous situation when one should be especially wary.
[...] jī added to huì (“occasion”) creates the Mandarin word for “opportunity” (jīhuì), but by itself jī does not mean “opportunity.”