The word "ransom" is correct and usable in written English.
It is used to refer to money or something of value that is demanded in exchange for the release of someone who has been kidnapped or held prisoner. For example, "The kidnappers demanded a large ransom in exchange for the release of the hostage."
Traffickers, said by human rights activists to work with local officials and even police, regularly hold their captives to ransom, detaining and torturing them in jungle camps in southern Thailand where authorities have recently uncovered dozens of shallow graves.
The SNP is threatening to hold the UK to ransom, says a Daily Mail headline across two pages.
David Cameron told the BBC that Sturgeon had made "a series of ransom demands" which would threaten Britain's defences by allegedly linking support for Labour with scrapping the new generation of Trident missiles.
In a nation held to ransom by well-armed thugs, and lacking almost all infrastructure, these remarkable people – often motivated as much by a desire to keep their country alive as to make money – supply tiny desert settlements all over the nation with scarcely any losses.
Speaking to Tory supporters from across the north-west of England in Carlisle, after a brief campaign stop in the Scottish Borders, Cameron said: "A government that was held to ransom vote by vote, measure by measure, budget by budget would bring this country to a juddering halt.
Less frightened than others, perhaps, by the prospect of political change in choppy economic times, and indeed less spooked by the spectre let loose by the Tory campaign – the thought of London being held to ransom by unruly Scots.
And what is the SNP's true position on calling a second referendum? 9. Do we believe SNP deputy leader Stewart Hosie when he threatens to hold Labour's budget to ransom in return for a promise on a second referendum?
My husband lived in fear of being kidnapped – and the ransom would be no less than 20m Syrian pounds (£70,000).
The one point he made which I agreed with was when he said there was no brain drain and we were being held to ransom by these very high earners.
First, it shows up the stupidity of all those newspaper spreads and BBC discussions constantly demanding "What would you cut?", like some middlebrow ransom note ("Choose now: or the lollipop lady gets it").
It was increasingly abused and held to ransom and in the end Thatcher broke with it.
