{"id":2163,"date":"2015-12-14T11:12:39","date_gmt":"2015-12-14T17:12:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/?p=2163"},"modified":"2016-01-08T14:22:27","modified_gmt":"2016-01-08T20:22:27","slug":"open-letter-to-dick-wolf-creator-of-law-and-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/2015\/12\/open-letter-to-dick-wolf-creator-of-law-and-order\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Letter to Dick Wolf, Creator of Law and Order"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Dick Wolf,<\/p>\n

As creator of the television show Law and Order:SVU, I would like to thank you for elevating the word \u201cheinous\u201d from the depths of SAT vocab obscurity to an everyday word. For the past seventeen years your fans have heard these somber opening lines:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the criminal justice system, sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

In our Midwest household, Law and Order began at 9 PM, the same time our grade school children began to negotiate an extended bedtime. I usually acquiesced to their request to stay up longer, \u201cjust until we see who gets killed.\u201d While I admit to a bit of guilt in exposing them to such violence, I also realize that your repetitive intro gave them a deep understanding of the word \u201cheinous.\u201d Mr. Wolf, thank you for giving them an advantage on their SAT test over their classmates with non-negotiable bedtimes. <\/p>\n

I have also come to love the expressiveness of \u201cheinous.\u201d I imagine you and your writers brainstorming the opening lines.<\/p>\n

Dick Wolf (DW): All right group. In our parent show, we refer to crimes only in a generic way. For this SVU spin-off we need to describe the essence of sex crimes. People need to understand why there is a special victims unit in the first place. Sexually based crimes are considered what? Any ideas?\u201d<\/p>\n

Staff Writer (SW) \u201cWhat about reprehensible?\u201d<\/p>\n

(DW) \u201cNo, too many syllables, too much of a mouthful and not enough punch.\u201d<\/p>\n

(SW) \u201cDepraved?\u201d<\/p>\n

(DW) \u201cSounds like a legal term \u2013 like depraved indifference. We need something that smells more like sex.\u201d<\/p>\n

(SW) \u201cOoh, ooh, I\u2019ve got one. How about execrable?\u201d<\/p>\n

(DW) \u201cToo much like excrement. There might be some overlap, but we want to focus on sex and not feces.\u201d<\/p>\n

(SW) \u201cWait, wait, I\u2019ve got it. Heinous. Heinous is perfect. It\u2019s got just the right \u2018je ne sais quoi\u2019 we need for an opening line.\u201d<\/p>\n

(DW) \u201cOkay, give me the dictionary definition of heinous.\u201d<\/p>\n

(SW) \u201cHere it is: \u2018Utterly odious or wicked.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

(DW): Not bad, but we need to connect the word with sex crimes. Flesh it out some more. Give me your pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n

(SW): \u201cNow just think of the sound of the word. H-E-I-N-O-U-S. It rhymes with anus, right, so the word implicitly puts us in the correct anatomy.<\/p>\n

(DW): Hmm, You know, the word also has a floral note of \u201cpenis.\u201d We\u2019re getting closer, but I think that we need another word to describe \u201cheinous,\u201d something rhythmic. It just needs to roll off the tongue.\u201d<\/p>\n

(SW) \u201cHow about \u201cespecially heinous.\u201d People will know that there is a spectrum of heinousosity, and that sexually-based crimes fall towards the right end.\u201d<\/p>\n

(DW) \u201cOkay, I\u2019m with you, like the spectrum concept, keep talking, go on.\u201d<\/p>\n

(SW) \u201cAlright, the word itself is a rule breaker. Remember from grammar school, \u201ci\u201d before \u201ce\u201d except after \u201cc.\u201d Heinous just doesn\u2019t follow the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

(DW) \u201cWhat are you thinking? Nobody\u2019s gonna care how to spell the damn word. The point is what heinous sounds like, and it sounds especially good to me. Any other ideas?<\/p>\n

Silence.<\/p>\n

(DW) Okay, done, \u201cespecially heinous\u201d it is. Now let\u2019s talk about the doink, doink sound effects of the opening lines.<\/p>\n

Mr. Wolf, now that you have introduced me to \u201cheinous\u201d I would like to use it conversationally. But this has been difficult. Through sheer repetition heinous is now so closely wedded to sex crimes I can\u2019t think of it in any other way. What other venues could I use it in? Perhaps I could focus on the gentler left end of the spectrum. Could I consider the overcooking of a steak a \u201cmildly heinous\u201d act and send it back to the restaurant kitchen? Or would it be \u201csort of heinous\u201d to RSVP a party and then forget to go? No, I don\u2019t think so, heinous just can\u2019t be softened. It starts in a bad place and only gets worse.<\/p>\n

I have been frankly appalled by the more recent episodes of SVU, and I would no longer let any children stay up to see who (or how) someone died. Out of loyalty to your brand, I have endured bizarre incest story lines, brain tumors that turn characters into pedophiles and twins with ambiguous genitalia abused by their therapist. Perhaps you have simply run out of story lines, or have felt the need to shake up a jaded audience that has become far too familiar with dreary iterations of fluids in the panties. So now I am grateful that you started out with \u201cespecially heinous,\u201d leaving you room at the extreme right end of the spectrum for something worse. Mr. Wolf, in the spirit of full disclosure, please consider intensifying your opening lines, replacing \u201cespeically heinous\u201d with the more accurate \u201cutterly heinous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Respectively yours,<\/p>\n

Liza Blue<\/p>\nFollow Liza Blue on: \"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>Share: \"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Dick Wolf, As creator of the television show Law and Order:SVU, I would like to thank you for elevating the word \u201cheinous\u201d from the depths of SAT vocab obscurity to an everyday word. For the past seventeen years your … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[34],"tags":[36],"class_list":["post-2163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mcsweeney-rejects","tag-fanagrams"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iVc8-yT","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2163"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2182,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163\/revisions\/2182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}