Style Conversational Week 1201: So can we laugh at him anymore? Now that he’s elected, do the rules change? And is anything funny? (Yeah, here’s some funny.) (Tweet by Ricky Montgomery) By Pat Myers Pat Myers Editor and judge of The Style Invitational since December 2003 Email // Bio // Follow // November 10, 2016 Okay, the sun did come up, the markets didn’t collapse, tanks didn’t roll down the street, a climate change denier is only being /talked about / as the next head of the EPA. But let’s say that Style Invitational entrants were lucky that I didn’t have to judge their jokes on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. I couldn’t bring myself to even crack a grim smile. (Yeah, I know I shouldn’t be revealing my political preferences, but for this election I gave up on objectivity long ago.) But Lord knows we’re going to need to tap into our senses of humor, and within 24 hours or so, I was finding at least a few jokes to smile about. Here’s a sampling, in addition to the tweet pictured above: A tweet that I saw shared on Facebook last night was the first to make me laugh: *“A brief moment of levity from my wife: ‘At this point if a clown invited me into the woods, I’d just go.’ ”* — fromNels Anderson, @Nelsormensch This one byBrian Pedaci was being shared everywhere: *BRITAIN: Brexit is the stupidest, most self-destructive act a country could undertake. USA: Hold my beer.* And I liked this one from a Canadian who goes by just Neil (@_enanem ): *Ok, don’t panic… If we hold the North and South Pole down simultaneously for eight seconds, it’ll automatically restore to factory settings.* And live on TV by a clearly stunned Stephen Colbert during his election night broadcast: *“We all feel the way Rudy Giuliani looks.” * Of course, the Onion couldn’t take off from work.This one was from Thursday morning: ITHACA, NY— In the hours since the Republican nominee’s stunning election to the nation’s highest office Tuesday night, reports have confirmed that, regardless of circumstance, it is not even remotely close to okay to act like Donald Trump. .. In fact, acting like Mr. Trump does for even a moment will result in a wide range of negative social—and in some cases, criminal—consequences for you personally. ... At press time, the reports’ findings were being summarily dismissed out of hand by roughly 45 percent of the nation’s population in a manner identical to that of Donald Trump.” The Onion also posted a list of tips on explaining the election results to your children: Such as “Put their mind at ease by confirming that the results of this election aren’t the end of the world in any strictly literal sense”; “Don’t be afraid to openly share your wine with them”; and “Reassure them that no matter what, the adults in their life will always feel obligated to tell them everything’s going to be all right.” And the Tumblr blog Asses of Parnassus republished this tersest of verses by Style Invitational Loser Robert Schechter: *Nostalgia* What’s best today is yesterday. And of course, here /we / are. The deadline was Oct. 24 for the Week 1197 cartoon captions that ran in today’s Style Invitational, and I had chosen the winners before the nation chose a new president. But I’d let in one entry whose premise was that Donald Trump would lose the election — and so I cut Elden Carnahan’s caption on the cartoon of the downward-pointing rocket on the launchpad: “The RNC arranged for Reince Priebus to take a nice long vacation after the election.” On the other hand, I didn’t think it made sense to have a contest this week like “What do we do now?” Jokes about highly exaggerated things the new president might say and do in the White House would be a lot funnier as a fantasy, not as something that either will or won’t happen. I do welcome ideas, however; email me at pat.myers@washpost.com. What kind of humor toward a President Trump is no longer within the bounds of humor toward Candidate Trump? Is he due more politeness by virtue of the office? (Certainly not because Trump has threatened The Post and its owner with everything from banning its reporters to perhaps going after Amazon on antitrust grounds.) I don’t think so. For all its crudeness, the Invite has always had some taste considerations on its jokes about specific people: We don’t run jokes about killing or torturing them, or saying that they’re going to Hell (confirmed mass-murdering villains, say Osama bin Laden, get the exceptions). We don’t make jokes whose premises are false or seriously unfair — that Hillary Clinton is a man, for example. (Okay, we did refer to Trump as having small hands, but man, did he bring that on himself.) But while I recently offered a second prize of an electronic toilet paper roller than plays recordings of Trump’s, voice, I would never offer — and never would have offered — the pair of white briefs with a blurry, brownish photo of Trump positioned as a disgusting stain (I’m not even giving you a link to that one. Google it if you want.) --- So instead, we pivot away from the election, at least somewhat, to return to our annual Tour de Fours neologism contest. While of course the four-letter block is different every year. the inking entries consistently play on existing words or phrases. Here’s the “above the fold” ink from last year’s D-I-C-E results (the whole set is here ): Fourth place: Ride and preju*dice*: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a cabbie in need of a fare still won’t pick up a black man after dark. (Lawrence McGuire, Waldorf, Md.) 3rd place:: Patton m*edic*ine: A bracing slap in the face. (Chris Doyle, Ponder, Tex.) 2nd place: *Deci*rculation: The one number that’s way up in the newspaper industry. (Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif.) And the winner of the Inkin’ Memorial: Tea *iced*: What Rep. Kevin McCarthy was last month. (Todd DeLap, Fairfax, Va.) [for those with short memories: he lost his bid to be House speaker] To see the results of the previous dozen Tour de Fours contests: Check out Loser Elden Carnahan’s Master Contest List on the Losers’ website, NRARS.org, then search on “fours.” You’ll land on the week when the contest was announced, say Week 571, but just look on the right edge of the chart a few lines down, then click to the link of the results of Week 571. (The winner of that first Tour de Fours, for THES: Transv*esth*eight: The distance between the jockstrap and the bra. By Frank Mullen III.) *OUTRAGEOUS FOUR TOONS: THE CARTOON CAPTIONS OF WEEK 1197* As always, there were lots of entries for captions for one or more Bob Staake cartoons, and because there were only four cartoons, we had more room on this week’s page for entries — 43 of them — letting me show the wide variety of approaches to a single drawing. Still, in many cases, I chose a single entry from as many as 20 with the similar joke or wordplay. That wasn’t the case with our Inkin’ Memorial winner this week, which was by far my favorite entry of the contest — and while it of course wasn’t expected to be, it’s a heck of an introduction to The Style Invitational should the president-elect pick up a copy of this week’s Style & Arts section. It’s just the sixth blot of ink for Steven Steele Cawman of New York’s Hudson Valley, and his first Inkin’ Memorial, though he’s also been a runner-up. “Grab them by the uvula” was just a brilliant way to allude to an, uh, unpresidential term that we can’t even use in the Invite. The rest of the Losers’ Circle also comprises relatively new blood: Larry Gray, who started about five years ago in Week 923 (a baby among the big-deal Losers), gets his 92nd blot of Invite ink, but Hildy Zampella got her 27 blots only since Week 1140, and it’s the 17th for Jerry Birchmore. And finally — each cartoon appears online above its captions! No more of that tedious scrolling back and forth or toggling between windows. Thanks to the always super-helpful Kurt Gardner of The Post’s newsroom IT squad. -- So let’s continue to find the humor in the situation. It’s there — it’s just up to us to make it funny and not just nasty.