Style Conversational Week 1245: Talkin’ ’bout misinformation The Style Invitational Empress dishes on this week’s contest and results By Pat Myers Pat Myers Editor and judge of The Style Invitational since December 2003 Email // Bio // Follow // September 14, 2017 The Washington Post’s Free for All page, which runs every Saturday in the print paper, contains a selection of letters to the editor that, rather than debating the issues of the day, criticize The Post’s coverage or presentation, often making, well, unusual points. This past Saturday’s included a note from a woman who disputed fashion critic Robin Givhan’s assertion that very high heels are uncomfortable (“I ran four New York City blocks in 3 1/2-inch heels to make the “Lion King” curtain. . . . It wasn’t that bad”), as well as a letter from a dog owner outraged that ousted Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka was called a “pit bull”; “The Post should apologize to pit bulls everywhere for the assertion that they are violent or otherwise have anything in common with white nationalists.” And down in the bottom left corner, the headline “Not alright”: /I have never understood The Style Invitational contest. Nevertheless I must vigorously protest the examples given for the Aug. 27 contest prompt, Generation Yux [Sunday Arts]. Changing the name of the Who’s well-known song “The Kids Are Alright” to “The kids are alt-right” is reprehensible. — / /Patricia Marx, Arlington/ I guess the letter writer’s point was that we were denigrating the song, or the Who, though I’m not totally sure. I /am /sure that Ms. Marx’s first sentence is totally correct. Anyway, the Free for All letter gives us a peg, as they call it in journalese, for another rant contest for Week 1245 — I should take Patricia out for ice cream for supplying the contest idea. Back in 1998 the Czar ran a contest headlinedFree for Oil (no idea what that meant); the example was: /To the Editor: I am writing to express my shock and dismay over Miss Manners’s rudeness. She had no right to publish the names of persons whose only offense was to ask her advice on a personal matter of wedding etiquette. Your newspaper owes Ms. Jane Jones and Mr. John Smith, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Host, an apology for this unconscionable invasion of their privacy! — An outraged reader / The Week 297 winner, by David Genser: /HAND-DELIVERED. URGENT! To the editor: Do not let them bury those people whose pictures you showed in Sunday’s obituaries! Most of them look like they are still alive!/ Most of the inking entries from that week, though, were funny misreadings of headlines, a source that we regularly tap for our “Mess With Our Heads” contests. It’s fine to do that as well this week, but it has to be in the form of a humorously outraged letter. Like this one: /“Maryland Agrees to Tobacco Settlement”: Well, that’s just great. Just what we need-an entire settlement of people devoted to their cancer sticks. What’s next, a drunk-driving commune? (Jean Sorensen, who’d suggested the contest)/ Results of Week 297 (scroll down past that week’s new contest) Five years later, the Czar ran a contest headlined “A Major Offensive”: “This Week’s Contest was suggested by a reader who wrote in complaining about last week’s contest, which offended him deeply. He was appalled that we offered kosher dog food as a prize for a contest to come up with really miserly ways to save money in the recession. Taken together, he said, these two facts insidiously reinforce the stereotype that Jews are stingy enough to eat dog food. Since the Czar is Jewish, the letter suggested, he must be a self-loathing Jew. Even though prizes never have anything to do with the contest, The Czar feels simply terrible about all this, and for penance dedicates this contest to the letter writer.... Find something anywhere in today’s Washington Post or washingtonpost.com ... and complain about it with absurd oversensitivity.” The winner of that contest, Week 493: /I was deeply offended that the Czar chose to conduct this week’s contest at the expense of oversensitive people; haven’t we suffered enough for our condition? (Cecil J. Clark, Arlington)/ Second place was Dave Zarrow’s “terrorist map” entry that we use as an example this week, and for which Bob Staake revised the cartoon for me five times. We may well still make Free for All anyway. Results of Week 493. Week 779 (2008) was prompted by an exchange in The Post in which someone’s long tirade was answered by a reader: “Of all the pressing local issues that need airing through additional public discourse such as the editorial pages, coughing at symphony concerts would not have made my top 100 or so.” So that week’s contest was to “rant about an issue that wouldn’t make your top 100 for airing in The Post.” That contest didn’t require that the complaints be about The Post, but this second-place winner would have worked in this week’s contest: /I am disgusted at the excessive and obscene “nipple shots” that for several weeks have plastered the front page of what should be a respectable family paper. Just because some fellow won a gold medal in swimming . . . (Zak Kemenosh, Washington, a First Offender) / Results of Week 779. And in 2011 I ran a contest headlined “How DARE we?” — a contest identical to this one. The winner of Week 930, by Peter Jenkins: /Re “Gun industry sues to block reporting rule”: When will The Post stop referring to the hardworking craftsmen and women who lovingly fashion personal firearms as a soulless “gun industry”? I suggest neutral wording such as “independent Mom and Pop freeholders handcrafting Second Amendment protection devices.” / Results of Week 930. *BLANK SPACES MATTER*: THE RESULTS OF WEEK 1241 * /*Non-inking headline by Jesse Frankovich, who gets three blots of ink this week anyway/ I’m not at all surprised that despite our promotion of Week 1241 in the crossword-nerd community, this week’s ink includes a grand total of one First Offender (congratulations, Allan Zackowitz of Brookeville, Md!). Except for the grid on which we presented the list of partial words, the contest really wasn’t about crosswords at all: With a few exceptions, almost none of the winning “clues” would be at home in a real crossword; they’re just jokes. But it’s a fun format, and once again it brought the Empress a long, long list of entries with plenty of good results. I especially enjoyed showing varying solutions for a single line on Evan Birnholz’s grid. It’s the sixth Style Invitational win (and 174th blot of ink) for Barry Koch (pronounced Cook), but it’s just his second Inkin’ Memorial trophy; his previous wins, from Weeks 758 to 867, were all Inkers. Barry used RELOCO to mean a job transfer to D.C., but it would also make a great verb, or a noun to describe someone who took the job. (I love neologisms that you can actually use in daily life.) Meanwhile, runners-up Duncan Stevens, Frank Osen and Jesse Frankovich are such frequent denizens of the Losers’ Circle that we’ve installed facial-recognition software for them. (Jesse’s extremely clever “OXY: Clever moron” might actually make a great clue in an edgy real crossword.) *What Doug Dug:* Ace copy editor Doug Norwood — finally back from vacation — named as this week’s favorites Frank Osen’s runner-up LOIS IS A TEN (my favorite among a /lot / of Lois Lane jokes this week, and already being lauded on the Style Invitational Devotees Facebook page); Duncan Stevens’s A-HOUND; Steve Glomb’s ONE SHARK as a low lawyer rating; and John Hutchins’s GET THE NOD (which happened to be the original term) as being hired at the bobblehead factory. *Penalty Boxes*: The Unprintables* /*Headline by Jeff Contompasis, who actually submits headline ideas for the Unprintables section of the Conversational / Among the entries that are better shared here, rather than to people who will instantly use it for their rants to this contest or straight to management: **1A (SNACK CAKES) SIX CUCKOOS: “___ tweeting,” follows “five golden showers” (Frank Osen) 1D (SPIT) SH! IT … The first two words to “Don’t Wake the Alligator” (Dave Prevar) 38A (ASS) ASS: A cassock without this part reveals a cock (Jeff Contompasis) 13D (INNER PEACE) UNDER PIECE: A pantyshield for that cod-awful smell (Jon Gearhart) 42D (ROCOCO) RECOCK: John Bobbitt’s surgery (Jeff Hazle) *FALL FILL-UP: LOSER BRUNCH NO. 200 THIS SUNDAY * Brion’s Grille in Fairfax, Va., near George Mason University, has a lunchroomy atmosphere but a nice brunch buffet with an omelet station, a pasta station and even a sundae station. And it’s the site for the 200th monthly Loser Brunch, an institution begun Back in the Day by Loser-before-they-called-it-that Elden Carnahan. Currently not too many people are signed up, but we have that critical mass (if not a hypercritical mass), and so as always, I’m looking forward to meeting new Losers and reconnecting with the Usual Suspects. RSVP to Elden at NRARS.org (click on “Our Social Engorgements”). It’s scheduled as usual for noon, but at least one person won’t be coming till 1 p.m., so if the pastor’s sermon is running long on Sunday, you don’t have to yell out “Dayenu! ” just for us; just let us know you’ll be late. *HAPPY NEW YEAR! * There probably won’t be a Style Conversational next Thursday, because it’s Rosh Hashanah and I’m going to be at the synagogue for a big chunk of the day, as well as on Wednesday evening. So unless I have my act together very early in the week and do the Convo several days early, let me take the opportunity to offer thetraditional Jewish New Year’s wish : May you get lots of ink in the Book of Life.