The end of the Stephen King short story The Mist is NOTHING like the ending of the movie. So, if you want to say something here about the ending of the movie, OK, but that's not what I'm talking about right now.

In the short story, the main character (played by Thomas Jane in the movie) hears the word Hartford on their car radio, as they are driving away from the supermarket. If you lived in New England, like Stephen King, you would know that that means Hartford, Connecticut... that's a long way from Maine, especially in the environmental conditions of The Mist, but at least it gave him a goal. The way the story ended, it seemed like they were going to try to drive all the way to Hartford, although I would imagine that it could take them several days, or weeks.

And then, right after that, the main character says two words to his son, as the son is going to sleep. The words are supposed to be a sort of charm against nightmares, and he says one of themis "hope," and the other is a word that "sounds a bit like hope."

Has anyone else here ever spent time wondering about this? I'm not sure what the other word could be. Maybe "home," but that doesn't quite make sense... would he have said hope home? Home hope? Neither of those exactly make sense... someone on a thread I'm about to post here mentioned "soap-on-a-rope," ha ha. Or, how about "Pope-on-a-rope!" Yeah, that's probably what it was.

Seriously, does anyone have any theories about what he meant? Here is a little discussion I found, with some people talking about this.
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-175590.html