Style Conversational Week 1294: (Wind-) breaking news
The Style Invitational Empress on this week’s contest and results
From this week’s second prize. But wouldn’t those little gas-bottles be
nice prizes, too? (From “The Gas We Pass” by Shinta Cho, Usborne Books)
By
Pat Myers
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Pat Myers
Editor and judge of The Style Invitational since December 2003
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August 23, 2018 at 3:47 p.m. EDT
Style Invitational Week 1294 is our fourth
go-round for a neologism contest centered on a word search grid. Unlike
our Clue Us In backward-crossword contests, in which we print a
filled-in grid and you come up with novel clues, you can’t turn the grid
into a word list to work from: Because your chosen letters can progress
along any path from one letter to the next — as long as you don’t skip
letters or land on the same spot twice — and there’s no length limit,
there’s almost an infinite number of possibilities for new words (or
even real words) to discover. So you’ll have to use the grid. If for
some reason you can’t print it out from the contest page, email me and
I’ll send you a copy.
Whew, I’d almost neglected to include that key direction to*begin every
entry with the coordinates of the first letter. * Yeow, that would have
sent me directly to Invite Judging Hell. Not only do I need the opening
letter and number to check the path of your entry, but having the
coordinates at the beginning of each line will let me (or, if possible,
the ever-obliging techno-Loser Jonathan Hardis, who can get around some
other problems) sort the entries so that I can see all the D-9s and N-5s
at once.
I made the grid the same way as before: I clicked repeatedly on a random
word generator, compiled a list of about 20 words, then typed that list
into the puzzle constructor at Puzzle-Maker.com, whose main business
seems to be for teachers putting together units for the week’s
vocabulary words. Two seconds and $4 later, I had a PDF of this week’s
grid (the letter and number coordinates are my own adds, which explains
why they’re not quite evenly spaced). Okay, it’s not quiiiiiite as
pretty as a Bob Staake illustration, but Bob appreciated the week off,
since he’s on yet another book deadline.
Not that it really matters, but here are the definitions for the more
obscure words that the generator gave me, in addition to /sedative,
flat, unfraught, almsgiving, decode./ I drew them both from the
generator and other online sites. All these words appear in the grid in
straight lines either forward or backward, as in your typical word search.
Fumarole: An opening in or near a volcano, through which hot sulfurous
gases emerge.
Desport (variant of “disport”): To amuse oneself divertingly or
playfully; to cavort or gambol.
Verbarmahoohoo: Well, I’m not sure. The word generator supplied some
definition when this word popped up, but I forgot to write it down
before clicking for the next word ... and then I couldn’t find a
definitive answer online. One source said “article writer” and another
referred to a white rhino, but neither site looked anything near
authoritative. I’d like to think it’s the rhino, but for all I know it’s
not really a word. It’s not in any of the major online dictionaries. But
you could, I suppose, use it as a neologism.
Agnus: A Christian emblem depicting a lamb bearing a cross or banner, as
in Agnus Dei, the Lamb of God.
Puddler: A foundry worker who runs a furnace that converts weak pig iron
into useful wrought iron. Here’s the dish
at a
handy site called Steelopedia.
Sarcel: An outer feather of a hawk’s wing.
Azidothymidine: Better known as AZT, a treatment for AIDS.
Innubilous: Cloudless.
Panderly: “Having the character of a pander,” Merriam-Webster informs us
helpfully. And “a pander,” a noun, turns out to be, according to its
entry that you then have to go and look up, either a go-between in love
intrigues, or a pimp. So a panderly person is? Someone who’s like one of
those.
Paise: In India and Nepal, one-hundredth of a rupee.
Anapest: As our Loserbards, especially our limericists, probably all
know, an anapest is a metrical foot that has two short, unstressed
syllables followed by a stressed one: ba-da-BA. While Style Invitational
limericks don’t have to begin with an anapest, some people try to do all
their limericks this way. For example, here’s a runner-up from our very
first Limerixicon contest (2004), on “apterous,” or wingless. It’s
anapestic from beginning to end.
Now these beetles are marvelous things,
In the kingdom of bugs, they’re the kings.
This is true of them all
Except ex-Beatle Paul,
Who is apterous now — without Wings.
(Scott Campisi, Wake Village, Tex.)
Misdo: To act wrongly, to transgress. As in mis-do.
Anisomerous: Describing a plant that has different numbers of floral
parts, such as four petals and six stamens.
*JUST DO WITTE*, OR BE LEVEY OR NOT**: THE RESULTS OF WEEK 1290*
/*/**Non-inking headlines by Nan Reiner and Chris Doyle, respectively/
This week’s results,
from our Week 1290 neologism contest, are a twin tribute: first to Loser
Tom Witte, who just became the third Invite contestant to score 1,500
blots of Loser ink; and to Tom’s other, erstwhile Post Passion, the
monthly contest from Bob Levey, who preceded John Kelly for 23 years as
The Post’s daily metro columnist.
If you’re familiar with Style Invitational neologism contests, you might
have noticed that this week’s entries are far less concise than usual.
It’s because they’re somewhat reflective of Levey’s contest, which had a
different format: Bob would describe some phenomenon or situation in a
conversational style and all the contestants would send in a (they
hoped) clever word to sum up that one thing.
This week’s inking entries, based on the examples given in Week 1290,
and from our first go-round of this contest
in 2004 — whose results I quoted that week in this column
— first spell out the situation Levey-style,
then supply the neologism. (I didn’t, however, want to echo Bob’s
practice of explaining the wordplay of each winning entry; we’ve mocked
it enough over the years.)
It would have been fun had Tom Witte won this contest — he did that
trick back in 2009 with a contest for his 1,000th ink (word with W, I,
T, T, E: Wattleship: A seniors cruise) — but he did turn out to be one
of the runners-up. Which makes it 106 runner-up blots since Tom’s debut
in Week 7. Plus 29 wins. Pretty good.
Instead, the win goes to Future Hall of Famer (assuming that neither he
nor the Invitational gives up) Jesse Frankovich as he nears 400 blots of
ink with blinding speed. Jesse’s “cahootzpah” — as Bob would say, “a
fetching force-fit of two cute concepts,” “cahoots” and “chutzpah” — is
his eighth Invite win. And the other two members of this week’s Losers’
Circle are Hall of Famers as well; Beverley Sharp is No. 7 on the
all-time list, Chris Doyle securely atop it.
*What pleased Ponch:* For the second week in a row, Panfilo “Ponch”
Garcia did the copy editing duties for the Invite in lieu of Regular Ace
Doug Norwood. Ponch’s faves were all from the ranks of the honorable
mentions: Dave Silberstein’s “philaundering,” Jeff Hazle’s “stalkward,”
Warren Tanabe’s “bratuity” and John O’Byrne’s “quotus interruptus.”
*NO-LOGISMS: Unprintable entries from Week 1290*
Some funny entries that wouldn’t pass the language or taste standards
even for the Invitational:
You’re a horny morgue worker and your boss just discovered that you’re
into necrophilia. The resulting shame is known as . . . amourtification.
(Stephen Dudzik)
An ornament for a lady’s pubic area might be referred to as a
twatchamcallit. (Jeff Contompasis)
Groping is just a game to some men in power. They even call it Poké Mons
Go. (Kevin Dopart)
Imagine yourself being stuck in a country where the Capitol has been
taken over by a bunch of pricks. Their new government would be called a
cockistocracy. (Let’s hope /that / never happens ...) (Jon Gearhart)
Movie director Michael Moore is noted for his f--- -ucumentaries.
(Charlotte Mathews, daughter of Loser Warren Tanabe)
When you patiently explain to your new boyfriend the best ways to
pleasure you, that is monsplaining. (Jeff Shirley)
While it is sad to see a loved one descend into dementia, a kind of
rueful comedy can occasionally arise. For example, the afflicted
individual may forget to fully dress before leaving his room. When the
clothing forgotten tends to be pants, this particular disorder is know
as Balzheimers. (Rob Huffman)
You’re wearing tight leggings to show off your curves but don’t wish to
reveal other items of interest to prying eyes. A female undergarment for
hiding “toes” is called camelflage. (Jon Gearhart)
*IN TWO WEEKS: M-WAH! *
Meghan Lunghi of Merriam-Webster emailed me a few days ago to let me
know that M-W would soon be announcing a list of words it would be
adding to its dictionary in early September, in case I wanted to do a
contest in conjunction with it. Yahhhhh. So in a few days Meghan will be
sending me the Secret List, which I plan to share in the Sept. 6/9
contest. Meghan also tells me that there’s soon going to be a revised
Scrabble dictionary as well! (It had better have “pho.”)