Style Conversational Week 1151: Here, we’ll spell it out for you
Style Invitational contestant Roy Ashley poses in front of a movie
poster in Madrid, October 2015. (Photo by Inge Ashley/Photo by Inge Ashley)
By Pat Myers
Pat Myers
Editor and judge of The Style Invitational since December 2003
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November 25, 2015
Dave Prevar gave me the book “Dear Asshole”
— hey, nobody’s reading this column except people who won’t go all
aflutter reading a book title — a while back at a Loser brunch
; it has 101 perforated pages
with fake-handwritten notes on them, ostensibly for tearing out to put
on someone’s windshield, the refrigerator at work, an offending tattoo,
etc. As I mention in the introduction to Week 1151
of The Style Invitational, I didn’t think I
could use it as a prize but thought it had contest-fodder potential.
What I didn’t note explicitly in the introduction was that I found the
book really lame, if it’s supposed to be amusing. As in the example I
cited about the restaurant patron, the rants aren’t witty; they’re just
strident and grating. “The only thing you are an aficionado of is how to
be annoying”? Yeah, speaking /of./ Maybe it’s /not /supposed to be
amusing; maybe it’s just for people who want to vent. I was amazed to
see that this book from 2011 is ranked around 1,500 on Amazon’s list of
top sellers. That’s a very high number even for a new book that isn’t by
a famous author; Gene Weingarten’s collection “The Fiddler on the
Subway,” 2010, is currently at No. 244,000, and even his “Old Dogs”
photo book, which always sells better in the Christmas season, is around
30,000).
Anyway, this contest demands more than the wordplay we treasure and
reward so frequently in the Invite. You actually have to write an
imaginative, funny gripe. We’ve run several rant contests in the past,
but they’re usually making fun of the ranters; we ask people to complain
stupidly about things they misunderstand or are unduly upset about, like
the “letter to the editor”
in which J.J. Gertler is shocked to see The Post endangering the
Republic by publishing column after column of “Classified” information.
I didn’t give a length for the rant, but I’m expecting to give ink to
entries that range from a couple of sentences to a longer paragraph. Not
a one-liner, not a whole essay.
Fortunately, there’s lots of writing ability among the Greater Loser
Community. Not to mention lots that they’re irritated about.
*AS THE WORD TURNS*: THE RESULTS OF WEEK 1147*
/*Dave Prevar’s alternative headline for the change-a-letter contest
Week 833, but really more appropriate for this one/
Our second annual neologism contest based on a word-search grid proved
once again to provide more than enough clever entries and definitions,
with lots of variety though some surprising duplication (“golygon” or
something close was used in several entries about Gomer Pyle’s geometry
class). And not one person sent me a clipped-out page from the paper
with various words circled, announcing that he’d solved the puzzle.
The task of checking the entries to confirm that their letters were all
adjacent inside the grid, in whatever direction, was taken off my hands
entirely by Loser Todd DeLap, who wrote me soon after I announced the
contest that he’d worked up a computer program for just this purpose.
Rather than follow his long list of directions to download and install
the program, I asked if I could just send him a list of words —
something he did for me yesterday morning, mere hours after I finally
sent him the 50 or so words on my short list. Todd found only one
mistake — and it was my own mistyping. Todd also noted that I’d failed
to include any of /his /words on the list. So I’m hugely grateful to
Todd, even if I don’t express gratitude with Invite ink (on the flip
side, I don’t express irritation or anger with a /lack/ of Invite ink;
it’s comforting to know that I can’t do either of those even
unconsciously).
Many of this week’s 41 inking entries by 29 Losers (36 entries in print)
were just clever new words, while some — including the winner, “Barbiest
Ken” — were also pretty amazing finds in the grid. And then there was
Kevin Dopart’s “BTFXPBLKJQ,” which was not so amazing a find.
Kevin wangled a runner-up out of that one, as did the more conventional
but equally nifty entries from Nancy Della Rovere and Ann Martin. Nancy,
who didn’t get her first ink until Week 1135, now has two runners-up in
two weeks; her “No Cigar” slogan for the new honorable-mention magnet
got her a Loser mug. Don’t get spoiled, Nancy. Plus, I hear that there
will be some nice new magnets very soon without your idea on them.
Meanwhile, it’s the 11th ink above the fold for Ann Martin, of a total
of at least 72 blots (Keeper of the Stats Elden Carnahan decided to stay
a little longer on his Australia/New Zealand expedition, so the stats
might not be totally current), while Kevin’s ink totals now require
exponents. And Jestin’ Jeff Shirley nabs his third Inkin’ Memorial and
saunters further past the 100-ink marker.
*Rank and Foul * /(Jeff Contompasis’s suggested title for the
unprintables; he often sends in headings for this department, even
though Conversational ink counts for zip in the standings): / Given that
Kevin Dopart’s “semensa,” especially with the play on “spunk” in the
definition, got actual Invite ink (online, not in print), I guess I
could have also gone (online) with Jamie Martindale’s “pantiforest: the
‘before’ picture at the bikini waxing salon.”
But not with this one, which surprised me not one iota that it was by
Tom Witte, except that this most pithy of entrants doesn’t ususally use
extraneous words like “slang for”:
K-3: Eelnog: Slang for semen.
*MEET THE PARENTHESES: (ROY ASHLEY, WASHINGTON) *
/(I met Roy at my first Loser event ever — a brunch in the summer of
2001 — and he and his wife, Inge, are among the most reliable attendees
at Loser functions. At our most recent brunch, they brought an excellent
solar waving Buddha that will surely be a future Invite prize. As with
all the bios in our Meet the Parentheses series, Roy modified my Q&A
template as he wished.)/
/*Age: * /Psalm 90:10 says “The days of our years are threescore years
and ten”, hence the saying that after age 70 you’re playing with house
money, which I have been doing for three years.
/*Where you live:* / Grew up in North Adams, Mass.; I’ve been in
Washington since 1966.
/*Do you have any comments on your official Loser anagram, “Horsey Lay”?
* /Neigh.
/*What brought you to Loserdom? * /I read and enjoyed the Invitational
for a couple of years, and decided to enter in Year 3.
/*What do like about the Invite? * /I enjoy it if a friend says he/she
enjoyed my entry, but I also like meeting the other Losers — I probably
wouldn’t enter nearly as often if Inge and I hadn’t met so many really
nice Losers at brunches and parties.
/*Some favorite entries?* /
/Week 120, bad analogies:/ “From the attic came an unearthly howl. The
whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation
in another city and ‘Jeopardy!’ comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30.”
This was my first ink, and it happened to be in a contest whose results
keep showing up all over the Web as “Actual Analogies and Metaphors
Found in High School Essays.”
A teacher I know told
me that a colleague came into the teachers’ lounge eager to share the
bad writing. the teacher saw my name and then explained.
/Week 487, Bad writing about sex: “/Oh, Chad, Chad, rip my bodice!”
implored the middle-aged librarian who had let down her bun and removed
her glasses.
/Also from Week 487: / Clem led the way to the haystack, and soon Bobbie
Sue forgot all about that half-eaten possum-and-tomato sandwich . . .
/*What’s an example of something that confirms your Loserosity? * /I am
a sucker for all-you-can-eat buffets. When visiting my daughter,
Susanna, at St. Louis University nursing school, I made a reservation
for us at supposedly the best buffet in town, at one of those revolving
rooftop restaurants. Brunch hours were something like 11 to 3; We
arrived before noon, and I proceeded to load up on the raw bar
offerings. When I returned to refuel, I was furious to discover that all
the good stuff had been removed — there were only rolls and butter. It
took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize that the food was all
still there — our table had rotated away from the main serving area.
/*What else? * / In 2008 we were staying in a hotel in Missouri, and of
course I had to check the Invite results, for which I had to use the
hotel’s computer in the lobby that night. For the contest that week,
people sent in their own pictures to illustrate any of five given
captions. In one, Jeff Brechlin had Photoshopped a classic nude painting
to make it look like a bondage picture. As I was viewing it, the night
clerk rushed over to me: “You can’t look at porn in the lobby — if the
police came in now, they could shut us down.” I didn’t think it was
worth explaining, so I tucked my pervy tail between my legs and left.
/*What are your Invitational goals?* / I’d like to get 500 points —
about 150 more — and be in the Hall of Fame, but there are so many
talented people entering now, and they prevent me from getting ink. I
guess I’ll have to put out contracts on quite a few Losers. You know who
you are.
/*Do you have any decent stories? * /When I was 12, my father took me to
Boston to see the St. Louis Browns play the Red Sox, and I saw Satchel
Paige pitch in Fenway Park. True.