Style Conversational Week 1187: Say wha!
The Style Invitational Empress ruminates all over this week’s
contest and results
This week’s winner displayed as an Ink of the Day; get these “social
cards” daily on Facebook by clicking “Like” at bit.ly/inkofday. I’ll be
posting other Week 1183 entries over the next week.
By Pat Myers
Pat Myers
Editor and judge of The Style Invitational since December 2003
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August 4, 2016
It’s our first neologism contest in 12 weeks — Week 1175 was for words
whose letters added to 13 Scrabble points — and I can’t envision
anything less than a deluge of entries and a mini-deluge of inkworthy
ones. (Then again, I can’t envision a Trump presidency either, so for me
“certainty” does include hope.)
As I mention in the introduction of Style Invitational Week 1187,
Loser Matt Monitto noticed that the Master
Contest List
includes a nine-year-old contest in which you drop the first letter of a
word and define the result, but no contest in which you drop the last
letter. His suggestion was accompanied by several persuasive examples,
two of which appear this week.
I don’t remember why we hadn’t run this contest before. Perhaps I just
forgot about it, or maybe I thought that people would say their real
word was a plural ending in -s, and then they’d just drop the S. *Okay,
people: Do not simply drop an S from a plural ending in -s. That would
be dumb.*
*Can the final word be a real word for which you’ve written a funny
definition? * I’m not going to forbid it, but look at the results below
for the drop-the-first-letter contest: /Almost all of the inking
definitions somehow relate the original word with the neologism.* / Can
you make that work with a final word that’s already a word? As always, I
don’t /require/ that the two words relate, just noting that’s what I’ve
found cleverest in the past. If you happen to come up with a devilishly
clever, utterly hilarious word and definition that doesn’t follow that
model, go for it. (*The definition for “kin-diving” below doesn’t relate
to skin diving; there might be a couple of other entries as well without
that link.)
I was reminded to add *“you may use hyphens” * notice from the examples
for Week 733: “I-am-I Beach: The last resort spot for egotists” and
“BS-ervation: A stupid platitude, like ‘It’s not whether you win or
lose, but how you play the game.’ ” Those were great! I’d like to think
they were mine, but they were probably by 316-time Loser Peter Metrinko,
who suggested the contest.
So see if you can match the quality of this contest from October 2007:
*Report From Week 733,* in which we asked you to create a word by
dropping the first letter of an existing word, and then supply a
definition. Submitted frequently among the 4,000 entries [this was most
likely a rough guess rather than a count] were “rankfurter” (hot dog
from the back of the refrigerator), “pectacular” (unbelievably chesty),
“Assachusetts” (where Ted Kennedy comes from, etc.) and Hardonnay (you
can guess).
*4.*Ouchdown: Joe Theismann’s last play
.
(Ira Allen, Bethesda)
*3.* Mnesia: Forgetting a mnemonic device. (Jack Held, Fairfax)
*2.* Riskies: Chinese-made cat food. (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village)
[This entry alluded to the recent discovery of poisonous melamine in
Chinese-made kibble sold by several U.S. companies; I received a
complaint from an angry reader for my horrible callousness in running it.]
*And the Winner of the Inker: * Riminal: A man who doesn’t clean up his
toilet dribble. (Deanna Busick, Knoxville, Tenn.)
*Lose, but No Cigar: Honorable mentions*
Amburger: my realization about myself as I’m kidnapped by cannibals.
(Brendan Beary, Great Mills)
Amished: Hungering for a simpler way of life. (Brad Alexander, Wanneroo,
Australia)
Ammogram: A loaded message. (Dianne Thomas, Fairfax)
Aspberries: Snake doots. (Howard Walderman, Columbia)
Assover: Any holiday dinner at which an unwanted in-law makes an
appearance. (Jeff Brechlin, Eagan, Minn.)
Atheter: An even worth medical applianth. (Jay Shuck, Minneapolis)
Bacus: A simple device to count the number of alcoholic beverages
consumed by your designated driver (Jeffrey Scharf, Burke)
Bracadabra: A really good boob job. (Howard Walderman, Columbia)
Brupt: Really, really sudden. (Fil Feit, Annandale)
Egotiation: An I for an I. (Chris Doyle, sent from Hong Kong)
Eminar: Eminem’s fifth child. (Mae Scanlan, Washington)
Ental breakdown: When Fangorn starts crazily shedding all his leaves and
losing his bark. (Seth Brown, North Adams, Mass.)
Etard: A person who constantly replies to all in e-mails directed to
only one person. (Jeffrey Scharf)
Gonize: To kick someone in the groin. “I’d like to gonize the idiot who
moved the Invitational to Saturday.” (Drew Bennett, West Plains, Mo.)
Hick-Fil-A: A squirrel that tried to cross the road. (Elwood Fitzner,
Valley City, N.D.)
Ho’s Who: National registry of prominent hookers. (Chris Doyle)
Iarrhea: Running on about oneself. (Jack Held)
Ickled: How you feel when your creepy uncle touches you with his
fingertips. (Carson Miller, Newark, Del.)
Ickpocket: A place to put your used Kleenex. (Kevin Dopart, Washington)
Idwife: Every guy’s dream. (Kevin Dopart)
Irates: After 15 consecutive losing seasons, what’s left of Pittsburgh
‘s fans. (Jon Reiser, Hilton, N.Y.)
Itchhiking: Chasing a tingle from toes to tushy. (Susan Collins,
Charlottesville)
Kin-diving: Incest. (Tom Witte)
Ngland: Vietnam. (Michael Fransella, Arlington)
Nowplow: An entirely fictitious device for D.C. residents. (Brendan Beary)
Ococo: Chanel’s frilly style before she came out with the simple black
dress. (Phyllis Reinhard, East Fallowfield, Pa.)
Omenclature: The Homeland Security threat-level warning system. (Edmund
Conti, Raleigh)
Ompadre: A Buddhist monk. (Bill Strider, Gaithersburg)
Onagenarian: An old hand at stress relief. (George Vary, Bethesda)
Ooperstown: Home of the Bill Buckner Hall of Fame. (Ed Gordon, Deerfield
Beach, Fla.)
Oreplay: Laying the groundwork for entering the mineshaft. (Chris Doyle;
Tom Witte)
Orgy-and-Bess: The Secret Truman Memoirs. (Chris Doyle)
Ouch-and-go: A dominatrix’s house call. (Kevin Dopart)
Oxtrot: A particularly ungraceful “Dancing With the Stars” performance.
(Pam Sweeney, Germantown)
P-portunity: Rest stop. (Christopher Lamora, Arlington)
Rackdown: the inevitable result of the battle between breast and
gravity. (Jeff Brechlin, Eagan, Minn.)
Ubergine: An enormous eggplant. (Ken April, Arlington)
Unich: German city voted World’s Safest Town for Women. (Jeff Brechlin)
Urotrash: Cigarette butts used for target practice in the men’s room.
(Brendan Beary)
Urple: The color of vomit. “For feeding the baby, Mom always wore her
urple sweatshirt.” (Chuck Koelbel, Houston)
XY-moron: A man. (Peter Metrinko, Chantilly)
*Anti-Invitational *(/add/ a letter to the front of a word):
Shysterectomy: Disbarment. (Peter Metrinko)
*And Last:* NV-itational: A contest that seeks to frustrate by accepting
entries from thousands but rewarding only a small group of toadying
favorites who obviously have nothing better to do with their time. I
don’t want your stupid prize anyway. It looks stupid. (Peter Ostrander,
Rockville)
*IN LOL HONESTY*: THE RESULTS OF WEEK 1183*
/*Non-inking headline idea by Jesse Frankovich/
“Not a single Trump joke in there!” marveled Ace Copy Editor Doug
Norwood after reading this week’s results yesterday. I hadn’t realized
that, actually; I guess the Trump jokes canceled one another out. I did
note that I got a lot of jokes that dis the honesty of either Trump or
Clinton. But as for credited entries, this week breaks a very long
streak. (Anyone with lots of time on his hands is welcome to tell us how
long.)
The 1,000-plus offerings of observational humor included many from new
or infrequent Losers; this week’s results include jokes from three First
Offenders and several others with just a few inks.
Like our Inkin’ Memorial winner. It’s the first win — and the first ink
“above the fold,” and only the third blot of ink ever — for Annette
Green of way-out-there rural Northern Virginia.
Annette’s an Invite rookie; she scored her Fir Stink for her first ink
this past May in this year’s foal- “breeding” contest: Great Dane x
Who’s Out = Not To Be
And she got her first magnet in Week 1180, in which you added a line to
a line in one of that week’s comic strips:
“ Is the hour up? I’m about to explode!” (”Baby Blues”)
“I’m sorry, Secretary Clinton, but your opponent insisted there be no
‘disgusting’ bathroom breaks allowed during the debate.”
Second place, on the other hand, goes to the wildly Invite-successful
Duncan Stevens — whom we’ll be calling Dunkin’ Stevens for the remainder
of the week.
Robyn Carlson was a runner-up for the first time just a few weeks ago in
Week 1180, but wished she had received the “LOVE/LOSER” mug rather than
the “Brain on Mugs” mug. (People, if you’re a runner-up and want a
particular prize, e-mail me within a couple of days.) “I will just have
to keep trying for the other one,” Robyn said. Ding! This is Robyn’s
15th ink since her Week 1026 debut. Loser mug it is.
But it’s a venerable veteran filling out the Losers’ Circle: Howard
Walderman has been getting Invite ink since Week 112 212 — most of them
via handwritten, snail-mailed entries; Howard didn’t get himself a
computer until just a few years ago. But he’s still scored 160 blots of
ink.
*What Doug dug: * Doug Norwood agreed with me on the winner and second
place, and also “laughed ruefully at “If Hillary Clinton were more
honest, it would prove she really is willing to try anything to get
elected” (John Hutchins) and “If police were more honest, they would
charge people with ‘asking for a badge number’ rather than ‘resisting
arrest’ ” (Chris Doyle).
*NEXT WEEK: WHAT’S THE BAG IDEA? *
We ran out of our Whole Fools design of our Grossery Bag for runners-up,
and I’ve been given the go-ahead to order 50 in a new design. My plan is
to use yet another runner-up or honorable mention from our bag-idea
contest, Week 964,
but I’ll entertain other suggestions within the next couple of days via
email. The design will be on one side of a white bag and can be in full
color. It will include the Washington Post masthead logo and will also
say “The Style Invitational.” As always, Bob Staake will design it.
(Once I run out of mugs, by the way — I have about 15 left — it’ll be
just bags for runners-up for the rest of 2016.)