The Style Invitational Empress has all the answers about this week’s contest and results The example accompanying Style Invitational Week 561, June 2004. We’re doing this contest this week for at least the 13th time. (Bob Staake for The Washington Post ) By Pat Myers Pat Myers Editor and judge of The Style Invitational since December 2003 Email // Bio // Follow // September 21, 2017 (The Empress is doing that wild New Year’s thing in the synagogue on Thursday, so most of this column was written in advance.) In 1998, The Czar of The Style Invitational ran a contest called Double Jeopardy, suggested by Jacob Weinstein of Los Angeles. The first example for Week 254: /She is now in jail, charged with aggravated battery and domestic battery. Question: What happened to the woman who mugged the Energizer Bunny? / Thus began one of my favorite Style Invitational contest series, in which, by my count, we bring you No. 13 this week with Week 1246 . There’s always fresh material for what’s now usually called Questionable Journalism, because we use that week’s newspapers. And since many of the best entries draw their humor from putting a sentence in a totally different context (without explicitly explaining it), they work well with people who’d recognize that context without help — people who read the paper a lot. Which would describe your typical Invite reader. The contest has been pretty much the same over the years: The first couple, in the pre-Internet era, were restricted to that day’s Washington Post, since everyone who was reading the contest had the paper right there. Starting in 2004, the Empress’s first year, we started to cater to online readers and invited people to use anything from either the print Post or washingtonpost.com over the space of a week (later, more, as the online Invite began to be published earlier and earlier; now it’s three days before the print contest appears in Sunday’s Arts & Style section). And this year, now that The Post has beefed up its paywall — the limit on articles that can be viewed without a subscription — I’m going to let you use sentences from other publications that have current dates (not books, past magazines, etc.), provided you can let me see the sentences in their original contexts. (It’s amazing how many of you will incorrectly quote the sentences, misspell people’s names, etc.) Also this year, for the first time, I’m allowing some headlines: the kind that read as full sentences rather than “headlinese,” with missing articles, forms of “to be,” etc. Full-sentence headlines, especially online, where space often isn’t as tight, have become much more common at The Post. Compare these two headlines I see at this moment on washingtonpost.com: Not okay for Week 1246: In sign of U.S. economy’s strength, Fed to start unwinding major stimulus program Okay for Week 1246 (either part): Puerto Rico’s power company was already bankrupt. Then Hurricane Maria hit. For guidance and inspiration, here are some inking entries from the earlier years of the contests. (For more results, see Loser Elden Carnahan’s Master Contest List at NRARS.org, and search on “question” till you find one of these contests.) /Week 254 runner-up, 1998: / “Well, we’re glad to be here,” astronaut Bonnie Dunbar replied from the shuttle. Q: Has President Clinton ever made inappropriate advances to female astronauts? (Dave Andrews) (*Note:* While my “significant part of the sentence” rule means that you don’t have to use the whole thing, see here how Dave Andrews used “astronaut Bonnie Dunbar replied /from the shuttle” /to make the joke. Nifty.) /Week 415 winner, 2001: / We gain information, via photons, of distant objects. Q. How does Al Gore challenge the notion that he is too wooden and remote, and that he lacks vision? (Russell Beland) /Week 415 honorable mention: / We put beers in it to stay cold — a mysteriously satisfying way to store beverages. Q. If Dr. Laura has a heart, what purpose could it possibly serve? (Drew Knoblauch) /Week 561 runner-up, 2004:/ In a good way. What line never works after informing your wife that her new outfit does indeed make her look fat? (Russell Beland) *(Note: * Here’s an entry that gives no idea of the original context of the original line — and it doesn’t matter, thus proving Ye Old Exception to the Rule.) Week 621 winner, 2005: His response: “I’m not worth anything anymore.” What did the English teacher reply when his depressed son said, “I ain’t worth nothing no more”? (Russell Beland) (For many years, Russell was the Invite’s highest-scoring Loser ever, amassing more than 1,500 blots of ink before he gave it up.) /Week 706 honorable mention, 2007: / This is the place that made me who I am. What’s so special about the back seat of your parents’ SUV? (Jay Shuck) *SEX, DRUGS & ROCKIN’ CHAIR*: THE THEN/NOWS OF WEEK 1242 * /*From a non-inking entry by Jon Gearhart/ I got numerous then-yuks/now-LOLs from the results of our second “then vs. now” contest, an update of the hilarious contest we ran in 1999 about “old and new concerns for the baby boom generation.” This time, almost two decades later, I welcomed both getting-old jokes and those about how times have changed (over various intervals, some less than a year). I vacillated about running the results in two separate lists, but ultimately decided to mix them up — this time I went along with the opinion of my predecessor, the Czar, rather than that of the Royal Consort, who thought that mixing the two kinds would be somewhat jarring. But we all had the same choice for the winner: Bruce Carlson’s devilishly clever and ruefully timely Mayberry and Opie/ Mayberry and Opioids. Were the reference not too subtle as only its second half, it would be a perfect headline for an article about how the epidemic has ravaged many a small town. Granted, it’s not guffaw-humor, but it’s not screedy either (compare with: Then: Donald Trump, disgracing himself. Now: Donald Trump, disgracing this country). And we have plenty of gigglemakers for balance. I discovered this too late to announce it in this week’s Invitational, but it seems that Bruce Carlson is the final winner of the Inkin’ Memorial; after he gets his, there’s just one left, and that’s how-you-say the Empress’s cut. So next week — months after I showed it off in this column and at the Flushies awards in June — I’ll officially announce and display our “new” first-place trophy —the Lose Cannon , complete with a “BNAG” flag flying popgun-style from the bore. This is Bruce’s second Inkin’ Memorial; he won one of the first ones back in Week 964 (2012) for his great Loser Magnet idea, “NOT(E) WORTHY.” And it’s his 25th ink of all time, though they go back to Week 412. Meanwhile, Frank Mann grabs second place and his 69th blot of Invite ink with his Houston/Houston entry. Several people submitted “Houston, we have a problem/ Houston, we have a problem.” But Frank played on /two / uh-oh movies with “Houston, we have a problem / Houston,you’re gonna need a bigger boat .” Bill Dorner and David Garratt can tell me their choices of Grossery Bag or Loser Mug for their 12th and 74th blots of ink, respectively. *What Doug dug: * Ace copy editor Doug Norwood also really liked Bruce Carlson’s Mayberry and Opie/ Mayberry and Opioids winner. Doug also singled out David Garratt’s “bell-bottom bottoms,” Chris Damm’s “unleaded water,” and Hildy Zampella’s three-parter about rewinding a cassette. *Then: Are you kidding? Now: Put it in that column nobody reads, down at the very bottom.* Actually, this week’s unprintables aren’t all that shocking, but we need something for this section. The president’s deposition, then: “Depends on your definition of ‘is.’” The president’s deposition, now: “Depends on your definition of ‘whiz.’” (Frank Osen) (I am going to assume that the president in the second line will never be deposed on this matter.) Then: Moon landing. Now: Mons handling. (Rob Huffman) Then: Tricky Dick in the White House. Now: Some things never change. (Jon Gearhart)