Style Conversational Week 1129: For once, I’ll make spelling count
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By Pat MyersJune 18, 2015
The Style Invitational has asked numerous times for poems featuring obscure words, or for ones on obscure topics: For the past 11 years, for example, our Limerixicon contests — which ask for a limerick featuring any word from some given sliver of the dictionary — have yielded verses that included “amplexus” (2004), “coprophiliacs” (2007) and “ecdysiast”(2009). And how about the time in 2005 when we asked for songs about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act; sea urchin sushi; or tungsten, bismuth and/or molybdemum?

In fact, this week’s contest — for poems that include words used in this year’s National Spelling Bee — is almost the same as one the Empress ran in May 2007, except that the Week 716 contest offered 75 possible words; today you get to choose among a mere 50. (Fortunately, this week’s list features no words that were in Week 716; I totally forgot to check that.)

Here are the top winners from the first spelling bee contest:


4. Oubliette, a dungeon with an opening only in the ceiling:
With an old oubliette, one could just forget
About terrorists like old Geronimo.
So why must the press write of the distress
At our new oubliette in Guantanamo? (the late Steve Ettinger)

3. Affliction by leeches -- hirudiniasis:
Bloody disgusting, however you spin it.
They trigger our deep-seated hygienic biases:
But worst is that one of them’s born every minute.
(Mark Eckenwiler)

2. Strigil, an ancient Roman tool to scrape dirt and sweat from the body:
He comes, he sees, he takes a bath,
For he is dirty. Crud he hath.
He’s pulled another all-night vigil.
Caesar takes his trusty strigil,
Scrapes away all grimy matter,
Then goes after Cleopatter. (Mae Scanlan)

And the Winner of the Inker:

Acariasis, a mite infestation:
I’m sad to say my grandpa Zacharias is,
Alas, no more. The doctor has suggested
The cause of death was likely acariasis;
With tiny parasites he was infested.


The wee arachnids he indulged with bonhomie,
For piety was one of his delights;
Remembering the book of Deuteronomy,
He loved the Lord his God with all his mites. (Brendan Beary, Great Mills)

While the Loser Community is not composed entirely of excellent spellers — almost every week, I see an entry that misspells “Barack Obama” — in general, of course, it’s a fairly literate bunch. And indeed, at least two Losers did extremely well in National Spelling Bees: 186-time Loser Mark Eckenwiler ended up in sixth place in 1974, earning the Pride of Tulsa a visit to the White House, where young Mark was photographed staring straight into Pat Nixon’s chest; and 16-time Loser Ned Andrews scored the grand prize in 1994, and later wrote a book on how to be a champion speller. Both Mark and Ned are now lawyers and presumably don’t mess up the Latin terms. Or stare directly into women’s chests.

By the way, I pulled several of today’s spelling bee words from this entertaining quiz created by USA Today. So you should now get several of them right.

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And while I didn’t prepare a list of the meanings of the 50 words, with links to the definitions, I wouldn’t be surprised if such a document appears within a few days on the Devotees page, provided by some in­cred­ibly generous Loser. Listen, it’s really worth joining Facebook (even with a pseudonym) just to join the Devotees, if you’re playing the Invite. Now that The Post’s blogging software is much more useful than it was when we formed the Dev page on Facebook, I was toying with the idea of moving the group back to washingtonpost.com. But The Post’s pages still don’t let commenters share pictures, start their own threads, and do some other things that make the Facebook page so much fun. But some Post people are working on a new project that seems perfect for the Loser Community, and I’ve already made contact with a member of the team.

Editties: The winning and Losing truncated song titles of Week 1125

When I posted the Week 1125 contest four weeks ago, I fretted in the Conversational that “I don’t know how many song titles can lose their beginning and/or end to humorous effect.” That very afternoon, Chris Doyle posted on the Style Invitational Devotees page: “Have no worries!” And indeed, the entries had already started flowing in within minutes of my posting the contest, totaling some 2,400 by the end, from nearly 300 entrants.


As I noted in the intro to this week’s results, there was a lot of duplication of titles, as well as of ideas. In addition to “Stairway (or [st]airway) to Heave[n],” many entries called “[B]lack Water” the new state song of California. Very few people didn’t follow the rules of the contest; a few took words out of the middle of the song, and a couple of them used the entire title. I enjoyed the variety of songs used; I didn’t link to them because it wasn’t necessary to the joke, except when the description included a short parody and you needed to know the melody. How embarrassing is it that I got to know (and like) the Bangles’ 1989 No. 1 hit “Eternal Flame” only through Jon Gearhart’s “Eternal Flam”?

While lots of perennials got ink in Week 1125, the Losers’ Circle didn’t have All The Same Ol’ People, for once. Even second-place finisher Jeff Brechlin, who has 383 blots of ink (and now an even 50 above the fold), has been entering sporadically in recent years. And it’s only the 11th blot for Inkin’ Memorial winner Tom Panther Mellencamp, though it’s also his second win: Tom won an Inker, the Bobble-Linc’s predecessor, in the Week 907 “naming rights” contest, for “the Washington Redskins Defensive Line Center for Nonviolence.”

Meanwhile, it’s only the second blot of ink for runner-up Ed Flynn, whose previous ink was in the Week 1097 contest to “clarify” an actual horoscope; Ed translated “A family member or loved one might wish that you would be a little more relaxed than you seem to be” to “Tell this person to **** ***.” And fourth-place Loser Josh Feldblyum, who’s been entering the Invite now and again ever since his tykedom in 2002, and following us as he’s moved from Maryland to Philadelphia to Louisville, grabs his 25th ink, and fourth above the fold.


(There were quite a few unprintable song titles; I include some at the bottom of this column. If you think you might want to complain about off-color humor, please don’t read them.)

Bury the hatchet (in my head) at the Loser Brunch June 28

I’ll be at Chadwicks in Old Town Alexandria, Va., at noon a week from Sunday, and Loser Nan Reiner tells me she’s coming with this prize. Have at me. As always, we’re always eager to meet new Losers (or even just Invite fans) and reconnect with the long-timers. RSVP to Elden Carnahan at NRARS.org (click at the top on “Our Social Engorgements”).

SINGING THE BLUE[s]: Unprintable entries from Week 1129
Even the no-way stuff had duplication this week.

Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come [Home]: Plea from a frustrated Mona Bailey (Neal Starkman, plus similar ones from a couple of others)

Feel this Mom[ent]: An ode to MILFs. (Laurie Brink)


Sweet Baby Jam[es]: A taste sensation, but what is the source of the sublime flavor? (Jeff Brechlin and several similar)

Down in the Ho[le]: Least likely entry to get ink this week. (Roger Dalrymple)

[D]ream On: Common, though generally unattributed, song in countless adult films. (Rob Huffman)

Into the Great Wide O[pen]: Stedman’s job. (Amy Harris)

[Another] Somebody Done Somebody [Wrong Song]: Parents come home early to a suspicious odor. (Jeff Brechlin, who’s just on a roll today)

[Rain]drops Keep Fallin’ on My Head: Also known as “The Bukakke Song.” (who else but Tom Witte)