WEEK 147: JUST FOR LIFFS


Dubuque -- n. A look of reproach given by a child to an impossibly unhip parent. Albuquerque -- adj. Bored silly from having to look at a neighbor's travel snapshots.

Cincinnati -- adj. Describes the look of a well-dressed gangster. 

Okeefenokee -- v. To shake one's head violently in approval.

Lubbock -- n. The inadvertent exposure of a plumber's gluteal crack.

Milwaukee -- n. A persistent creak in a floorboard that sounds like flatulence.

This Week's Contest was suggested by Sherry Marts of Silver Spring, who stole it from a 1983 book by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd. Sherry wins a pirate flag. Adams and Lloyd created a word game called Liffs. A Liff identifies a familiar, tantalizing concept without a word to define it, and pairs it with a perfectly good but underutilized word that just loafs around on maps and street signs. Your challenge is to come up with original Liffs like those above. Place names can be from anywhere in the world. First-prize winner gets a rare vintage set of six inspirational Jim Bakker audiotapes in which the famous evangelist teaches you how to be a good person. The tapes were made in the early 1980s, before Jim was thrown in jail for first-degree criminal sleazeballing, treason, piracy, sedition, poltroonery, bootlegging, pandering, anarchy, and generally being an oily hunk of crap.

Runners-up, as always, get the coveted Style Invitational losers' T-shirts. Honorable mentions get the mildly sought-after Style Invitational bumper stickers. Winners will be selected on the basis of humor and originality. Mail your entries to the Style Invitational, Week 147, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, fax them to 202-334-4312, or submit them via the Internet to this address: losersaccess.digex.net. Internet users: Please indicate the appropriate Week Number in the 'subject' field. Entries must be received on or before Monday, Jan. 15. Please include your address and phone number. Winners will be announced in three weeks. Editors reserve the right to alter entries for taste, appropriateness or humor. No purchase necessary. The Faerie of the Fine Print & The Ear No One Reads wishes to thank Jean Sorensen of Herndon for today's Ear No One Reads. Employees of The Washington Post and their immediate families are not eligible for prizes.

REPORT FROM WEEK 144, in which we asked you to come up with rebuses, using at least two images from that day's paper (This chart was not available).

NEXT WEEK: Looie, Looie