One kind word can change someone’s day — but not always for
the better.
While watching the latest episode of
Crisis, an NBC drama about D.C. high school students abducted during
a field trip, I spotted a
kind- word
that echoed loudly, for troubling reasons.
From 10 to 11 p.m. ET on Sundays — in times of
Crisis — I reach for meaning. Last
Sunday night, meaning escaped me. To be more specific,
the meaning escaped me — the meaning of two words seen in a faux TV
report.
What first spelled disaster for
Crisis,
which was
canceled after only one season, was its misguided attempt to form the word that
means people who unlawfully seize and detain victims, usually for ransom. The
show had to choose between being
kind
and being right. It chose to be
kind.
That’s not right.
The first syllable of the first word in that stilted,
passive caption is, like an 18-year-old, not a
kid anymore. (They grow up so fast.)
Kind is not a nice start. When I discovered this unusual sequence
of letters during the episode aptly titled “Found,” I thought:
What’s the meaning of this?! Is a kindnapper
some sort of friendly sleeper? You’ve got
to be kidding me. You need to be kid
-ing
me.
Disaster loomed again near the end of the next line, when
another error jumped off the screen on my screen. What’s with
abandoned’s 3-
d spelling? Someone’s depth perception is off. That extra
d has resulted in a word that falls
flat.
How would I handle this problematic situation? I’d remove the
n and abandon the
d. I’d also add an apostrophe after the
s in
kidnappers, because
the word is possessive, and I’d delete the extra character space between
military and
troops. That, readers, is rapid, effective
Crisis management.
