Style Invitational Week 1118: Breed ’em and weep — our annual foal classic Plus the Pollyannals: winning bad-news headlines spun to suit the Optimist newsletter If you bred Tradesman with Hold My Purse, you could name the foal Jenner Bender. (Bob Staake for The Washington Post ) By Pat Myers April 2 (Click here to skip down <#report> to this week’s results, for headlines that make bad news sound good) *Tradesman x Hold My Purse = Jenner Bender Mubtaahij x Easy to Say = Easy for YOU to Say * *Mr. Z x Vandalize = Cut It Out, Zorro* *Ready Get Set x Punctuate = Ready, Get Set . . . * Let’s sound the Loseaphone, the official Style Invitational bugle — it’s Post time: It’s the 21st annual running of The Style Invitational’s horse name “breeding” contest (not counting its spinoffs), which always draws thousands of entries in competition for a bobblehead, a $4 mug, a flimsy bag or a paper-thin magnet that hundreds of entrants will fail to win. On the other hand, while the Kentucky Derby charges owners at least $50,000 to walk a colt or filly into the starting gate, we’ll let you in for the price of a double-spaced e-mail. *At the bottom of this page is a list of 100 of the more than 400 racehorses nominated for this year’s Triple Crown events; your job is to “breed” any two of them and name the “foal” to reflect both names, as in the examples above.* No, it doesn’t matter that almost all of the horses in the list are male; this isn’t Indiana, for cryin’ out loud. *A name may not exceed 18 characters including spaces, *as in the real racehorse world, but one or more of the characters may be punctuation marks or numerals. You may run words together to make the name fit if it’s simply hilarious, but the name still should be easy to read. *Make sure to spell the original horse name correctly in your entry,* or the Empress might not find it as she clicks her search button for the progeny of each horse on the list. As always, you may send as many as 25 entries, and they can all be on the same e-mail; in fact, the E would like that. Winner gets the Inkin’ Memorial , the Lincoln statue bobblehead that is the official Style Invitational trophy. Second place receives a genuine owl pellet, a blob of stuff that an owl coughed up after snarfing down a baby bird or little mouse. Pull at it with tweezers and you can find bits of bones and feathers and sundry other ex-animal parts. Donated by Mike Creveling. Other runners-up win their choice of a yearned-for Loser Mug or the ardently desired “Whole Fools” Grossery Bag. Honorable mentions get a lusted-after Loser magnet designed by Bob Staake: either “The Wit Hit the Fan” or “Hardly Har-Har.” First Offenders receive a smelly tree-shaped air “freshener” (FirStink for their first ink). E-mail entries to /losers@washpost.com / or, if you were born in the 19th century, fax to 202-334-4312. Deadline is Monday, April 13; results published May 3, on Derby Weekend (online April 30). You may submit up to 25 entries per contest. Include “Week 1118” in your e-mail subject line or it might be ignored as spam. Include your real name, postal address and phone number with your entry. See contest rules and guidelines at wapo.st/InvRules . The “Pollyannals” headline is by Tom Witte; the honorable-mentions subhead was submitted separately by Beverley Sharp, Dave Prevar and Jeff Shirley. Join the lively Style Invitational Devotees group on Facebook at /on.fb.me/invdev ./ “Like” the Style Invitational Ink of the Day on Facebook at /bit.ly/inkofday. / *The Style Conversational: *The Empress’s weekly online column (published late Thursday afternoon) discusses each new contest and set of results. Especially if you plan to enter, check it out at wapo.st/styleconv . And the results of the Style Invitational contest announced four weeks ago . . . POLLYANNALS: THE SPUN NEWS OF WEEK 1114: In Week 1114, * we asked for headlines that put “an optimistic perspective on some otherwise not-so-promising news” so it could fit in with the positive, inspirational articles featured in The Post’s e-mail newsletter the Optimist. We welcomed headlines from the past, present or future and got all three. Some of the entries below, especially ones about the D.C. area, contain links to explain some of the references. 4th place: After Monster Storms Hit Vanuatu, 32 More People Know Where Vanuatu Is (Kathleen DeBold, Burtonsville, Md.) 3rd place: /1793:/ How to stop head lice from spreading to the rest of the body: Marie Antoinette learns one quick trick (Pie Snelson, Silver Spring, Md.) 2nd place and the candy-pooping leprechaun: Adorable Hamster Survives Earthquake That Killed Thousands (Robert Schechter, Dix Hills, N.Y.) And the winner of the Inkin’ Memorial Milk Cartons Are Beautified With Youthful Portraits (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.) THE FLOPTIMISTS: HONORABLE MENTIONS A New Foreign ‘Pen Pal’ for 47 Senate Republicans (Jeff Shirley, Richmond, Va.) Rising Income Gap Reduces Number of 1-Percenters to 0.5 Percent (Mark Raffman) As RadioShack Goes Out of Business, Look for Deep Discounts on All Pong Games (Roy Ashley, Washington) American Inventiveness: Four in 10 People Find Clever Ways to Live on Scant Resources (George-Ann Rosenberg, Washington) Boko Haram Moves Girls Out of Poverty (Kevin Dopart, Washington) O’Reilly, Williams Unhurt as Bombs Explode in Ukraine, Syria, Yemen (Robert Schechter) D.C. Rabbi Proves That ‘Liberal-Arts’ Types Can Be Tech-Savvy, Too (Mark Raffman) Record Number of Families Spotted at Disneyland (Kevin Dopart) Get Ready for Swimsuit Weather with Miracle Sub-Saharan Diet (Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif.) Falling Tree Unites Man With Great-Grandmother He Never Knew (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines) Florida Bans ‘Climate Change’; Key West Now Safe From Flooding (Bird Waring, Larchmont, N.Y.) You might be selected to get line-by-line personalized tax advice about your 2013 return (Pam Sweeney, Burlington, Mass.) Town of Mariupol Hosts Russian Army Reunion (Warren Tanabe, Annapolis, Md.) Over Past Year, Secret Service Made White House More Inviting to Visitors (Kevin Dopart) Metro Riders Celebrate Less Crowded Trains With New ‘Survival of the Fittest’ Program (Nan Reiner, Alexandria, Va.) Fat, Homely Northern White Rhino Soon to Cease Being an Eyesore (Jeff Shirley) NSA Noted as a Leader in Internet-Based Learning (Warren Tanabe) Women in Government: ‘Joe Biden Has Our Backs’ (Kevin Dopart) Climbers Fertilize Mount Everest (Pam Sweeney) Utah Aiming Not to Use Lethal-Injection Drugs (Kevin Dopart) HAPPY HEADLINES FROM THE PAST — AND FUTURE /1865:/ ‘Our American Cousin’ Knocks ’em Dead at Ford’s (James W. Hertsch III, Alexandria, Va., a First Offender) /1961: /Berlin’s New Wall Offers Miles of Fresh ‘Canvas’ to Street Artists (Mike Gips, Bethesda, Md.) 1937: Sturdy N.J. Mooring Tower Withstands Blow From Dirigible (Jeff Shirley) /Distant past:/ Boat Family Survives 40-Day Flood by Eating Griffins, Unicorns (Chris Doyle, Ponder, Tex.) /Distant (?) future: /Robotic Overlords Acquiesce to Our Demands: Friday’s Nutro-Goo Injections Now to Be Pizza-Flavored (John Kammer, South Riding, Va.) *Still running — deadline Monday night, April 6: our encore song parody contest. See bit.ly/invite1117 .* THE HORSE NAMES TO USE FOR WEEK 1118 *First: Do the Empress a favor and . . . * ● Don’t “breed” two names and use a third name from the list for the “foal.” People do this every year and never get ink because it’s just not a creative enough move. (Sorry.) ● Don’t format your list as a chart, with tabs., etc. All the formatting disappears when the entries are combined into one big list for judging, and sometimes the names end up all over the page. Please just use regular text in your e-mail, with each entry on a separate line. ● It helps the Empress’s eyes a lot if your entries have space between the lines — not tons; double-space is fine, or even 1.5 (if you write your list in Word, and copy the list into your e-mail). ● Make sure the horses you breed are spelled just as they are in this list, because the E will be searching on each of those names to compare all the foals from Horse A at once, then all the foals from Horse B. (We’ll be using the format Horse A x Horse B = Foal, as in the examples at the top of the column.) /These 100 3-year-old racehorses are among this year’s more than 400 Triple Crown nominees on a list published by BloodHorse.com ./ Acceptance Action Hero American Pharaoh Apollo Eleven Armored Car Baloney Mike Battle of Marathon Because I’m Happy Big Ben Black Lab Blame Jim Bold Papa Bolo Bourbon Commander Calculator California Coast Carpe Diem Changing Direction Classy Class Cold Spice Colonel Fish Comfort Condo Commando Crafted Cross the Line Danny Boy Daredevil Data Driven Defined Dirt Monster Dortmund Dubai Sky Eagle Easy to Say El Kabeir Equilibrium Escalate Fantasy Pain Far From Over Far Right Firing Line Flashy Jewel Frat Boy Frosted Gangster Giant Story Great Stuff Harmonic Help From Heaven Hero of Humor Hold My Purse How You Ideal In the Pocket International Star Itsaknockout Just Kidding Kid Zip Killingit Kiss the Road Leave the Light On Letuspray March Mighty Mousse Moon River Mr. Jordan Mr. Z Mubtaahij My Point Exactly Nasa No Problem Ocho Ocho Ocho Overcontrol Pain and Misery Prospect Park Puca Punctuate Pure Excitement Quality Bird Ready Get Set Richard the Great Royal Squeeze Scamp Shaken Not Stirred Skill Not Luck Squeegee Super Surfer Take Charge Brandi Texas Red The Man Tough Customer Tradesman Ultra Sharp Upstart Vandalize Will Did It Willing to Travel Wisecracker Your Thoughts Zip N Bayou