Style Conversational Week 1192: Ask Backwards, our Trebekin’ call
The Style Invitational Empress on this week’s contest and results
The Empress's first Ask Backwards, but the Invite's 21st. Back when we
used to present them in a space-eating "Jeopardy!"-style grid. (By Bob
Staake for The Washington Post, 2004)
By Pat Myers
Pat Myers
Editor and judge of The Style Invitational since December 2003
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September 8, 2016
Talk about your Old Reliables. If you’re trying to make a new contest
work, and failing, hey, you can always come up with 12 or 15 random
silly phrases and, four weeks later, have plenty of good ink. It’s
alchemy. And I’m sure Week 1192 of The Style
Invitational will be no different.
The Czar introduced the Ask Backwards contest in Week 24 (August 1993);
he didn’t credit anyone’s suggestion, so I assume it was his own idea.
He always likened it to “Jeopardy!,” since entries have to be in the
form of a question; Bob Staake’s caricature of Alex Trebek was used
repeatedly. But really it’s more like the recurring “Carnac the
Magnificent” bits that
Johnny Carson used to do on his show, with help from Ed McMahon, and Bob
did a Carnac caricature for Week 995
.
The Czar Asked Backward more than 20 times, sometimes only 10 or 12
weeks apart. I’ve kept it closer to once a year, 40 to 50 weeks apart,
though once I had two in 28 weeks, and once skipped almost two years.
Here’s a sampling of winners and runners-up from some of the Invites
from the Invite’s first few years. Often, just as they are this year,
the “answers” often play off current headlines, which tend to be
ephemeral issues of the day (or, as we’d call them now, trending
topics). So some of the winners that I’m not sharing were jokes about
Marv Albert or Darva Conger or something Madeleine Albright said that week.
/Week 38, 1993:/ Fifth Runner-Up:
Answer: A Great Big Sucking Sound
Question: What preceded the Big Bang? (Tom Witte, Gaithersburg)
/Week 60, 1994: /And the Winner of the terra-cotta Lawn Pig and Lawn Bunny:
A. Stinkle.
Q. What is the primary drawback of the Dick Gregory “all-asparagus”
diet? (Bruce Evans, Washington)
/Week 91, 1994: /And the winner of the Buzz Saw Clock:
A. Spelling, Punctuation and Gas.
Q. What are three things related to the use of a colon? (Chuck Smith,
Woodbridge) [Spelling is related to a colon?]
/Week 111, 1995: /And the winner of the bedroom mood meter:
A. The Hero, Robert McNamara.
Q. If a big sandwich and Robert McNamara fell overboard, in which order
should they be saved? (Tom Witte, Gaithersburg)
/Week 125, 1995:/ Fourth runner-up:
A. Here’s a hint: It’s yellow.
Q. What is part of the last question on the West Virginia urologists’
licensing exam? (Gene Van Pelt, Verona, Va.)
/Week 141, 1995:/ Third Runner-Up:
A. An Aspirin Tablet and Diana, Princess of Wales.
Q. What are two bitter white things? (Anthony Cooper, Alexandria; Ellen
Lamb, Washington)
/Week 193, 1996: / First Runner-Up:
A. Bagels and Logs.
Q. What are the signs on the rest room doors at Murray’s World o’
Bagels? (Michael Koch, Potomac; Jacqueline Moore, Washington)
/Week 214, 1997:/ First Runner-Up:
A. Larry, Curly and Moses
Q. In the Bible, who are the Three Wise Guys? (Jerry Pannullo, Kensington)
/Week 237, 1997: / Fifth Runner-Up:
A. Hitler, Pol Pot, Satan and Marv.
Q. What are four names you’ll never see followed by the word
“Boulevard”? (David Ronka, Charlottesville)
/Week 284, 1998: /Second Runner-Up:
A. It’s About the Size of a Watermelon.
Q. According to DoD-STD-9283, Sub-paragraph 4b, how big is a watermelon?
(Barney Kaufman, Manassas)
/Week 305, 1999: / First Runner-Up:
A. A Llama, a Thermometer but not Elizabeth Dole.
.
Q. What are some things that can climb with a man sitting on them?
(Susan Reese, Arlington)
/Week 340, 2000:/ And the winner of the Libyan wall hangings:
A. Lucy in the Sky With Diapers.
Q. Q. What song actually does contain the lyric “The girl with colitis
goes by”? (Sandra Hull, Arlington)
Hey, we got a million of ’em. Well, maybe a thousand. For as much
further inspiration as you like, go to Elden Carnahan’s Master Contest
List on the Losers’ website, NRARS.org , and search
on “backward.” See the week number on the left side of the table, then
click on the same number on the right side, three or four weeks down,
for a link to that week’s results.
*THE PITH-ING MATCH* OF WEEK 1188*
(*An excellent but unprintable headline by Danielle Nowlin; she also
offered “Pith Poor” for the honorable mentions, and I was tempted)
Week 1188 — the challenge to “explain some
concept or philosophy” in 100 or fewer one-syllable words — was more fun
to judge than I’d expected. The wording in the better entries wasn’t
overly contrived, and I usually could get the point of those that
weren’t accompanied with titles. I almost missed noticing that “orange”
and “ugly” (in separate entries) had two syllables; I hope we’re good
and monosyllabic now.
While I was fairly expansive on what a concept or philosophy was, I
didn’t think it encompassed rewriting a poem in one-syllable words, or
telling an old joke. Not surprisingly, a lot of people wrote about
Donald Trump (some explanations got ink); the thing is that Trump
himself tends to be just as simplistic.
Some people sacrificed accuracy for the sake of staying short and
short-worded: One explanation of football included: “If the ball goes
ten yards, that’s a down. They get four of those.”
Because of length, just 13 entries made the print Invitational; I added
a few more online (sorry, Kevin Dopart: your newsprint-only admirers
miss both your inking entries the week). I think we have an amusing
variety of topics and styles, though.
Certainly different from all the entries was Hildy Zampella’s logic
about being the parent of a teenager. Hildy didn’t get her first blot of
ink until Week 1140, and she’s already had two wins and a runner-up
(among 17 blots of ink). And it’s another newbie, Ed Sobansky, who gets
his first ink “above the fold” with his snark against libertarianism;
that entry plus his honorable mention about Miranda rights (Ed is a
retired public defender).
First runner-up Rob Cohen gets Ink 53 (and 54) with his explanation of
baseball to one Jacques, plus his explication of The Style Invitational
to a flummoxed Jeff Bezos (I know of no evidence that The Post’s
Seattle-based owner has any idea we exist). And Melissa Balmain was
thrilled that Bob Staake chose to illustrate her poem about the Olympics
with a picture of fencers; the Invitational went up online a couple of
hours ago, and Melissa wrote to me that her grandfather had actually
been a member of the Olympic fencing team “many moons ago and had to
drop out because of blood poisoning in his thumb.”
*What Doug Dug: * Ace copy editor Doug Norwood, who read this week’s
Invite, chose as his faves both Melissa’s poem and the
birds-and-the-bees entry I credited to both Ward Kay and Duncan Stevens
(mostly the first half was Ward’s, the second half Duncan’s).
*A BRUNCH A WEEK FROM THIS SUN DAY! *
(Sorry, I’m still single-syllabilizing things.) It’s Loser Brunch No.
190, on Sept. 18 at noon at Chadwicks in Old Town Alexandria near the
river. I have to be downtown at 1, so I won’t be able to be there, but
it’s a fun spot and there’s usually free parking to be found within a
few blocks. RSVP to Elden at NRARS.org (click on
“Our Social Engorgements”).