Style Conversational Week 1111 (Four 1s and for all): The bills that would never pass; The Empress of the Style Invitational reviews this week's new contest and results. Washington Post Blogs February 12, 2015 Thursday 7:57 PM EST Copyright 2015 The Washington Post All Rights Reserved Length: 1455 words Byline: Pat Myers Body It's like sausage: Once it's put before you with lots of links, you'll say, "What happened with that stupid patty?" Nah, the results of Week 1107 are great, no? While I always moan and groan while judging The Style Invitational's biennial "joint legislation" contest, I also always look forward to it, because I know it will pay off -both in reader popularity and in the quality of the results. The 41 inking entries from almost 40 Losers -including five First Offenders -topped the stack of at least 2,000 entries, many of them remotely intelligible. I do wish that more people had heeded my plea to have someone else read their entries, without hints, so they could see if your string of congressmen's names sounded like an English phrase outside your own highly deluded mind. My guess is that the person who sent this one, for example, didn't go through the just-ask process: Emmer-Schumer-Feinstein-Young-Barasso and Tillis Proclamation declaring March to be Victoria's Secret Appreciation Month. Except for "Barasso," I had no idea how any of these words related to Victoria's Secret, let alone what the whole phrase said. Maybe I was just tired, I figured, so I posted the entry on the Style Invitational Devotees page on Facebook, Their comments included: -"In William Goldman's ... first novel, Temple of Gold, breasts were referred to as "twillies" but I seriously doubt there's a connection. I only read it about 50 years ago and still remember that!"- " 'em are some-uh finest in young bare ass until it's ???" -" Emmer-Schumer seems to be the "March" part, but the rest seems full of empty syllables.- Schumer=showin' her or show him her.-and Tills="And still is?" Feinstein could be cockney rhyming slang for "fine?" -I suggest "finest teen" (even though it's TYNE) because you just can't ignore that S in Feinstein's name.- Don't know what Emmer-Schumer is yet, but I'm guessing the rest is: "finest in young bras show and tell us."-don't think the writer meant this but Emmer-Schumer makes sense as "amorous humor", I finally contacted the writer and asked. And what he was aiming for was this: "Them are (Emmer) some (Schumer) fine (Feinstein) young (Young) bare asses (Barasso) and titties (Tillis). "A bit of a reach perhaps." Style Invitational reviews this week's new contest and.... Perhaps. Obviously, the best way to make the your phrase clear is to use names that are perfect homonyms: Boyle-Dold-Rice is pronounced exactly "boiled old rice." But there could be a little stretch, as some of this week's inking entries demonstrate. I think the stretchiest this week is "The Hurd-Daines-Knight subsidy for those who have been working like a dog," But it totally works -because the rest of the entry makes it clear that David Friedman meant "Hard Day's Night"; because we don't have to puzzle out what the heck he's getting at, we can sit back and enjoy the joke. It's even kind of funny that it's phonetically off. Contrast that with "The Newhouse-Murkowski-Schatz resolution: Speaker Boehner's White Russian drinking contest to celebrate having a congressional majority and a personal bartender who don't want to get rid of him." The writer did think to add an explanation: "New House, more cowski shots! This joke requires the reader to figure out that a drinker as experienced as Boehner would have his own pet name for White Russians (which contain cream) - a "Cowski." This is asking a little much of even the hyperbrainy Loser Community. There's a difference between a joke -even a clever joke - and a puzzle. It was by accident that I hadn't included Rep. Dave Brat on the list of names to work with, even though he's not technically a freshman; he was rushed into his seat after beating House leader Eric Cantor in the primary, as a tactic to gain seniority. I just forgot to add him to the list of actual freshmen of the 114th Congress. So we can use him next time. There were many similar entries for Week 1107; some got double credit (I also occasionally combined elements of two entries for a double credit) but usually I chose the entry I thought worked a little better than the rest. But sometimes a slew of entries just canceled one another out; the many "Lieu-Trott" jokes about running to the bathroom, for instance, or "Love-Sessions-Booker," etc., about madams and pimps. Even without, for once, a Sen. or Rep. Johnson, there were lots and lots of off-color jokes (a sampling appears below). Thanks, Rep. Peters and Sen. Barrasso. I was mildly surprised that I didn't get any grief (as of this hour, anyway) from the newsroom Taste Police about the Peters-Nelson wrestling hold or the Torres-Dingle zipper safety legislation or the Buck-Tillis-Sasse-Hurd bronco-riding limits. Note, however, that none of those was used in a sexual context; and weren't as crudely graphic as some of the similar ideas noted at the bottom of this column. Lots of new and almost-new names among this week's inking entries, including "above the fold": It's just the third blot of ink ever for Inkin' Memorial winner Dawn Kral, who nevertheless has mastered the power of the elegant poop joke. And it's only the second ink for runner-up David Clayton, and the 10th for Joanne Free, who both nailed the Cosby angle in even this contest. And even longtime ace Losers Kathy Hardis Fraeman and Steve Langer -who have 17 winners or runners-up between them -total fewer than 100 blots (each has a Real Life as a scientist); contrast that with the Losers' Circle totals of well over 1,000 in many weeks. Too insidey for the Invite, but just right for here: Rep. Lee Zeldin was called into service for several tributes to a Hall of Fame Loser: -The Lieu-Zeldin Resolution to cheer the ink-seeking efforts of one Mr. Carnahan. (Nan Reiner) [Lose, Elden!]­The Schatz-Hurd-Zeldin-Sasse commendation honoring immunization advocate E. Carnahan for repeatedly demonstrating the hypodermic. (George-Ann Rosenberg) [Shots hurts Elden's ass]- The Emmer-Rice-Love-Zeldin Carnahan Act establishing that you don't have to be handsome to be the teacher's pet, as long as you're funny. (Mark Raffman) [Empress loves Elden Carnahan] This last one is disqualified because it implies that Elden is less than totally studly. (Refuted here.) I was thinking that we'd already done a contest that called for puns on song titles, but I guess not. And while we've done funny names for businesses, they don't seem to have played much on song titles: The only one I found was Style Invitational reviews this week's new contest and.... for the Week 641 contest to combine two businesses: Elliott Schiff noted that a petting zoo/bellsmith could be named A Ram, A Lamb, A Ding-Dong. Good, then! I'm expecting thousands of entries for Week 1111. Go to it! As usual, a familiar song title tends to make a funnier joke than an obscure one. You do need to change the title in some way, not just name a business that an actual song title would be good for. The March Loser Brunch has been set for Sunday, March 22, to coincide with the National Cherry Blossom Festival and the visit by Losers Kathy El-Assal and Becky Fischer from Wisconsin. It's the ample buffet at Paradiso, always one of my favorites. For more information and a calendar of Loser events, see the Losers' website, nrars.org, and click on "Our Social Engorgements" at the top of the page. Note: If you're reading all the way down here, we assume that you're not going to be offended by crude, tasteless humor. If you are, please don't read the following. They're not for you. There were a lot of entries along these same lines. Here are a sampling: The Peters-Torres-Sasse Penitentiary Reform and Inmate Reparations Act (David Clayton) Cruz-Young-Peters-Sasse Congressional Page "Mentoring" Act (Tim Livengood) Palmer-Rounds-Peters-Tillis-Hardy: This bill instructs freshmen congressmen on the best method to stay out of trouble when they become geo-bachelors in D.C. (Rob Wolf) The Torres-Sasse Bill to create a new opening for the President's staff, centered on servicing the privates sector. (Jon Gearhart)Cruz-Tillis-Peters-Hardy Act to study the invigorating effects of ocean voyages on erectile dysfunction (Jeff Shirley)Trott-Tillis-Dingell­Torres-Sasse: resolution to require the Surgeon General to warn men to wear jockstraps when jogging. (Rick Haynes) Young-Rounds-Mooney-Guinta-Bishop-Peters-Hardy Bill requiring altar boys to serve in pairs (Andrew Knapp) Hardy-Coons-Guinta-Tillis-Cotton Act to Repeal the Thirteenth Amendment (Elden Carnahan) I'm enough of a glutton for punishment to ask for ideas for a similar contest we can do before the 115th Congress goes into session in January 2017.