Style Conversational Week 1289: Delaware & other points West
Trivia coming and going in this week’s Style Invitational
Thomas West, Baron De La Warr, lent his name not only a state, but to an
Indian tribe. (Wikipedia)
By
Pat Myers
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Pat Myers
Editor and judge of The Style Invitational since December 2003
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July 19, 2018 at 3:34 p.m. EDT
I hate overexplaining jokes, or jokes that overexplain themselves. And
so I vacillated a bit when it came down to figuring out how best to
present thebad guesses to trivia questions
in
Week 1285 of The Style Invitational. Should the correct answer go first,
before the joke? Would it be in the way there, like some clod who
positioned himself right in front of the good view? Should it go
afterward? Should it maybe not even be there?
But after trying out various formats — and using one for one joke,
another for another — I decided that almost all of this week’s inking
entries worked in the one that Obsessive Loser Duncan Stevens had used
in his examples when he suggested this contest,
inspired by the awards for best wrong answer
in the LearnedLeague online trivia challenges.
The only exception: Ward Kay “guessing” that the state named for Thomas
West was West Virginia. Maybe I felt that the actual explanation was so
interesting (I didn’t know this factoid, though the Royal Consort did)
that I feared that Ward’s dumb guess would lose its punch.
I was somewhat flexible about the “guesses”; some read like actual
stupid guesses (Tom Witte’s that Pb denoted the element of peanut butter
made me laugh out loud), while others were too clever to be guesses,
like Chris Doyle’s “Children of a Lhasa God” (“Sorry, too clever” is not
something I’m apt to say). Jeff Contompasis’s entry of various anagrams
for the band name Imagine Dragons didn’t have facts at all, except that
it’s indeed true that the band did cryptically credit its name to an
unspecified anagram.
Still, these don’t compare with a lot of entries that weren’t remotely
trivia questions but just setups for a joke: “What makes someone look
cool?” “Where can certain soaps trace their origin?” “What do Democrats
now regret?” “What is the president’s hairstyling routine?” I judged the
entries this week from a printout, and there was page after page where
my pen did its big “Nope — nothing here” slash from top to bottom.
But as always, it doesn’t matter how many entries aren’t inkworthy, or
how lame those entries are. It’s only about the entries that get ink,
and this week I was pleased with at least 28 of them, from 24 different
people.
It’s the fifth win for Howard Walderman but his first Lose Cannon;
Howard has been blotting up ink since Week 212, 177 inks in all. Howard
is not what you’d call an early adopter; until not that many years ago,
Howard (official Loser Stats anagram:
Raw and Mad Howler) didn’t even own a computer, and I guess not even a
typewriter: Almost every week, he would meticulously /handwrite /a
pageful of entries to that week’s contest, with straight-edge
underlining in contrasting pen. Perhaps my, er, less than wholehearted
embrace of this system finally propelled Howard into the late 20th
century; in any case, he uses the online entry form like everyone else,
and probably gets more ink than through his old method.
This week’s three runners-up — Matt Monitto, Art Grinath and Jeff
Shirley — are old hands at the Invite, though seven-year veteran Matt’s
hands are old only because he started getting ink during his freshman
year of college. In fact, even all the honorably mentioned Losers this
week have ample ink supplies — except for First Offender Lisbeth
McCarty, aka No, You Misspelled Both My First Name and Last Name (Loser
Jeffery Hazle, here’s some competition for you).
*What Doug Dug: * The faves this week of Ace Copy Editor Doug Norwood
included Howard Walderman’s winner and also Todd DeLap’s
Rumpelstiltskin/Sessions; Chris Doyle’s “Children of a Lhasa God”;
William Kennard’s Second Amendment; Lawrence McGuire’s dig at alien
theorists; and Jon Gearhart’s “urmama” joke.
*LIES AND MORE LIES: THIS WEEK’S ANIMAL FICTOID CONTEST*
We tour Trivia World on two well-worn paths this week: the Q&A quiz and
the just-plain-factoid. Not surprisingly, the Loser Community is rife
with people who memorized the Guinness Book of World Records back when
it had actual world records and not just stunts, as well as several
“Jeopardy!” winners. So many of you know what your typical trivia fact
reads like, and how to play off it. If you’re not sure what we’re
looking for, here are links to a few of our many previous Invite fictoid
contests. (Scroll down past the new contest to the results.)
Week 924, false facts about history
Sample ink: “Susan B. Anthony’s middle name was Barbie.” (Judy Blanchard)
Week 1075, fictoids about cars and related facts:
The name of Erik Prndl, inventor of the automatic transmission, is
displayed on most cars’ dashboards. (Edward Gordon; Jeff Shirley)
Week 1132, fake trivia about the military:
In response to reports of “Potemkin villages” in Stalinist Russia, the
U.S. Army developed a plywood-seeking missile. (Larry McClemons)
*THIS SATURDAY: LOSER STAGE EXTRAVAGANZA!!!!!*
Okay, it’s a 45-minute one-act play, the first of three presented
Saturday, July 21, as part of the NVTA One-Act Festival, from 1 to 3
p.m. at the James Lee Community Center, 2855 Annandale Rd., Falls
Church, Va. But “Romantic Comradery” is by Hall of Fame Loser Chuck
Smith and directed by Hall of Not as Much Fame Loser Ward Kay, who
reports that it’s full of one-liners. The Royal Consort and I will be
there; let’s have a nice Loser contingent to represent. Hope to see you
there.
*YES, WE HAVE A LITTLE GRANDPRINCESS*
The Royal Scion and his Scioness have brought forth the most beautiful
li’l baby in the world. All is well. Thanks to all for your well-wishes
— we’re over the moon and honing our spoiling technique.